Big Sister
by Gatac
Summary: AU, follows "Interlude". A foreign dignitary disappears. The investigation into the Paradise incident continues. And what, exactly, is Becca up to? Finally finished!
1. Chapter 1

Aloha, true believers! After a long and strenuous planning period, we are ready to launch into the next big adventure. Mucho props to my cowriter Kasey Kagawa. And thanks for all the reviews, everyone, I really appreciate those. Now, on with the show!

* * *

Jaime Sommers's living room was decorated in a nice way, if measured against a certain selection of criteria. For one, it was visually pleasing. It rated high on leaving enough room to move to the sofa from all directions, and had most of the seating facing the TV - always a plus. What it emphatically did not do was provide maximum floorspace for demonstrations of autonomous robots. This was going to be a problem.

Becca crouched in the doorway leading to her room, bent over her "baby" - a six-wheeled contraption not entirely unlike the Mars rover on a smaller scale. Instead of holding aloft a solar cell like the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, her robot's top had several beams sprouting out of it, mounting cameras and other sensors high up for maximum utility. Next to the robot stood Becca's netbook, set up to receive the video transmission from the robot's cameras. A thick strand of cables wrapped in isolation tape trailed from the robot's rear, leading into her room where it connected the mobile unit to a still quite immobile power supply. It was one of Becca's worries - rebuilding the suspension to carry the additional weight of nickel-cadmium cells meant more work, but then again, this wasn't the final chassis.

It was one of those projects where every step just made her realize how far she still was from the final result. Becca loved every second of that feeling. But tonight, other things were on her mind; she glanced up every so often and looked at the windows out to the street. After a few seconds, her eyes darted back to the netbook's screen.

While Becca made her final adjustments, Will and Jaime were busy adjusting the layout of the furniture to make room for Becca's robot. The demonstration was, after all, for Will's benefit, who snuck interested glances at the robot whenever convenient. Jaime had seen quite enough of it over the weekend already, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to hide her pride in Becca when the demonstration started. Still, the matter of the sofa remained; Will was already at the other end.

"You should throw this thing out," Will said. Jaime smiled politely. "No, I'm serious, Jaime. You and me, we can carry this right to the porch."

"It's my first couch, Will," Jaime said.

"I know, and I'm saying it's time for your second couch."

"Okay, how about this," Jaime said. "If we lift it and it falls apart, I buy a new couch."

"It's not just going to fall apart, Jaime," Will said. "Couches don't do that unless the internal frame is broken. You would have noticed that sitting on it."

"Then what's wrong with keeping it?" Jaime said.

"It's old," Will said, as if that was the most obvious fact in the entire observable universe.

"I like old stuff," Jaime said with a smile. "Like you."

"Jaime!" Will said, looking horrified for a second. "That is **not** funny."

"We're both older than this couch, Will. You know that."

"All joking aside, you're not seriously suggesting that a couch should retire at 65 like a person does, are you? I would expect a good couch to last 10 years, not more."

"Ah," Jaime said. "So you're proposing that we come up with an equivalent of dog years for couches?"

"No," Will said, "I'm proposing we move this couch before your sister kills us both."

Jaime turned around to look at Becca, who - sensing the attention - looked up from the netbook.

"What's the holdup?" Becca asked.

"We're arguing about couches and being old," Jaime said and signed. Ever since the argument the week before, Jaime had paid extra attention to signing when she spoke with Becca, which was not - strictly speaking - necessary, but still nice.

"Argue while you're moving it, then," Becca said.

"Just give us a second," Jaime said. She turned back to Will. "You heard the boss, Will. Let's do it."

"Remember, normal strength," Will said quietly, as if there was need to whisper. "Don't let the couch get the better of you."

"I'd like to see it try," Jaime said, kneeled down with Will and tried to lift it.

The universe couldn't let that one slip. When Jaime and Will lifted the sofa up, Jaime felt a quick stab of pain in her lower back. She winced, but kept her grip.

Will's eyebrows shot up. "Put it down," he grunted out, struggling with his end of the couch.

Jaime's side of the couch didn't waver. "No, I got it," she said.

"Putting down now," Will said. In between short puffs of breath, he set the sofa back down, forcing Jaime to follow suit.

Jaime stood back up. "What was that for?" she asked, rubbing a spot on her back.

"You were in pain, Jaime," Will said. "I saw it."

She waved him off with her right hand. "It was nothing. Really. Now, come on, let's move this thing so Becca can show us her robot."

"You're in pain," Will said. "Let me get my kit."

"No, no - no, Will, it's -" Jaime looked at him and forced a smile. "I'm fine, really," she said. "It's passing already. Probably spent a little too much time hunched over with Becca. It happens."

"Jaime, I can check it -"

"No," Jaime said. "I'm fine, alright? I'll just sit down for a moment." She smiled again. "Why don't you join me? The couch can wait a few minutes."

Will weighed his options. Sure, it could be nothing - and truth be told, he hadn't gotten a lot of close contact with Jaime since the accident. Turning it down when she was offering was foolish.

"You shouldn't be doing anything strenuous," Dr. William Anthros, MD said. "And you haven't...taken your bath today. She - it will help with the pain."

"Come on, Will," Jaime said. "I just wanted to see Becca show you the robot. The couch isn't that heavy, I can do this."

"No, I can't let you risk that now," Will said. "You go take your bath first. Doctor's orders."

Jaime wanted to cuss out Will. But Becca's presence was felt keenly, and even though her little sister wouldn't be able to read anything specific with Jaime's back to her, Jaime decided that it wasn't worth it. Becca would notice that something wasn't right, and it wasn't worth fighting about this. A moment's hesitation had bought her mind enough time to roll out the deescalation protocol, smooth the waves, play nice. And with Will - well, sometimes Jaime couldn't escape the feeling that he just didn't know any better. Shouting at him wouldn't be...fair.

"Fine," Jaime said, relenting. "I'll take a bath, Doctor Anthros. **You** have fun with the couch."

Will watched Jaime walk off to Becca's puzzled look.

"Jaime?" Becca asked. "What's wrong? Where are you going? I thought we were doing this now."

"I'm really sorry, Becca, but I must have hurt my back," Jaime said, taking her hands off of bracing her spine to sign. "Will says I should take a hot bath to relax it before it gets worse, so - I'm taking a bath. I'll try to hurry, okay?"

"...o-kay," Becca said.

Jaime smiled at her little sister, stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Becca looked at Will, who clearly did not fancy meeting her gaze.

"What does she mean, 'I'm taking a bath'?" Becca said.

"She means she's - taking a bath," Will said. He said the first words absent-mindedly, then remembered who he was speaking to and slowed down to overemphasize every sound in the second half. Becca refrained from telling him that both were equally unhelpful in reading his lips.

"So, she's taking a bath?" she asked again.

"Yes," Will said, exaggerating his nod. Becca rolled her eyes slightly.

"Okay, whatever," Becca said. "You wanna see robot, you make room for robot, comprendé?"

"Yes," Will repeated.

Becca took that to mean that the conversation was over and went back to fiddling with the machine. Will looked at the bathroom door for a few seconds, still trying to recall more details to determine if there was something worth really worrying about with Jaime's back. Having concluded that he just didn't have enough data, he went back to the task at hand. He bowed down, grasped the couch and - with some effort - lifted his end up. With a grunt, he held it, looked over to the other side and saw only Becca in her corner, completely not paying attention to him. Despite his intense wishes, the other end of the couch did not levitate through his raw willpower, and after a few seconds he set the couch back down.

To the sound of his own heavy breathing, Will concluded that he hadn't thought this one through.

* * *

Jaime stood in the bathroom and did nothing. Her back was still hurting, Will was concerned, she had told Becca - but Jaime didn't actually want to take a bath. That was the thing. There could have been a thousand good reasons, but Jaime didn't want to. She wanted to be back out there with Becca, helping to move that damn couch, watching her little sister show off their hard work to Will. He was finally showing some genuine interest in Becca for the first time with this robot, but then her back acted up, and the other Will, the new Will from Berkut, called the little family moment off and told her to go "take a bath". Showing off what Becca had accomplished was far more important to Jaime than her daily session with Truewell, but it seemed like it was less and less about what Jaime Sommers wanted these days.

After a few moments, Jaime sighed and went over to the bathtub. She opened the tap with her left hand and checked the temperature with her bionic hand. The water went from lukewarm to scaldingly hot after a few seconds; Jaime dialed back accordingly. While the tub filled, she unbuttoned her jeans and worked her way out of them. Her new bionic legs seemed to have more heft to their thighs than her old legs did; by Jaime's standards, it wasn't quite enough to go shopping for new pants, but it was enough to annoy her. Will's big talk about fidelity in the reproduction didn't seem to be worth much if they couldn't even get the proportions right.

She finally stepped out of the jeans and gave them a critical look. She hadn't noticed the oil spots before, but Jaime realized quickly that she had wiped her hands on her pants when she worked on the robot's suspension for Becca. With an annoyed grunt, she pulled the faux leather belt out of its loops and dumped the pants into her laundry basket. More in accordance with her treasured job as chief mechanic, she was wearing the rattiest of ratty t-shirts - its iconic Che Guevera print long faded to near invisibility -, and the lithium grease on that consigned it into the laundry, too. Next came the underwear, boxer briefs and a sports bra. Jaime had never much liked loose or excessively flattering underwear, and with the heightened physical activity in her new life, it seemed like practicality could chalk up another victory. Finally, she stripped off her socks and climbed gingerly into the tub, wincing a little from the sore spot on her back. Intellectually, she knew that she still didn't weigh all that much more than a normal human being (if there was any detectable difference at all), but she was still waiting for the tub to tip over, spill her onto the cold floor and play a wacky sound effect.

_Here we go again,_ she thought. "Jinx," she said a second later, but if the universe was truly out to punish her for trying to predict the next catastrophe, it might have let that one slide.

She sat down in the tub, drew her legs in, and watched the water level rise. After a few seconds of careful observation, she leaned back and waited for Truewell's voice in her ear. The water level rose again, but not significantly. She was in the water up to her neck, with her knees breaking the surface owing to the small size of the tub. The only sound in the bathroom was the still-running tap.

A click and a beep in her bionic ear told Jaime that Truewell was connected. _Are you ready, Jaime?_

Jaime sighed. "Can't this wait just a half-hour?"

_You're already in the tub. We might as well take care of it now, Jaime. I'll make this quick and you can get back out there with Rebecca, I promise._

Jaime briefly considered defying both Will and Truewell, and just walking out there dripping wet and only wearing her towel. Will's imaginary reaction brought a slight smile to her face. "Fine, I'm ready," she said, shutting the tap off without looking.

_Okay, the reason why we're here first,_ Truewell said. _How bad is it?_

"I've had worse," Jaime said. "And it's better than feeling fine when I'm not."

_I'm glad to hear you like being off the controls, then, _Truewell said. _But you should be more careful, Jaime. You're still not completely healed._

"I'm getting pretty tired of hearing that. I feel much better - but everybody's treating me like glass. Ooh, Jaime, sit down, I'll do that for you, don't strain yourself, you should rest...you could hurt yourself lifting that remote..."

Truewell stiffled a laugh. _What was he trying to watch?_

"So You Think You Can Dance," Jaime said. "I can't wait until he gets his own TV again. Don't tell him I told you, please."

_Your secrets are safe with me,_ Truewell said. _Do you mind if we get down to business for a moment?_

"I'll live," Jaime said. "The usual?"

_The usual._

Jaime sighed. "Hit me."

_Any limb malfunctions?_

"No."

_Hallucinations?_

"No."

_Urges or heightened emotional states?_

"No."

_Unusual behaviour?_

"No," Jaime said. "And 2."

_Jaime, I'm recording this. Please wait until I ask the question._

"Okay."

_On a scale of 0-10, how much pain are you in?_

"2," Jaime said. "Wait, with the back?"

_Yes,_ Truewell said. _How painful was that?_

"About a 4, I guess," Jaime said. "Like I said, I've had worse, but it snuck up on me. I lift the couch and I'm just about to stretch up when it hits."

_Did you feel your back tighten or spasm?_

"Yeah, but just for a moment, like I was lifting it after I had just finished a run or was lifting boxes in the back of the bar."

_Okay. How are you feeling now? Is it still there?_

"It's a little stiff now," Jaime said. She sat up experimentally in the bathtub; the pain didn't return. "But otherwise, I'm back to normal. Feeling a little sore all over, but I think it's getting better."

_Good. And - there's the report. _There were a few seconds of silence before Truewell spoke again. _Do you want to talk about what happened at the call?_

Jaime couldn't imagine squirming from a conversation until the agitation of the water surface showed her that she was actually doing it. "Another time," she said.

_How about Rebecca, then? _Truewell asked. _I know she's on your mind._

"Yes, of course," Jaime said. "I don't like lying to her, and - that's really what it is, Ruth. I don't know if I can keep lying to her."

_Do you always tell her the truth? About everything?_

"Of course."

_Even about what goes on between you and Will?_

"Okay, maybe not **everything **everything," Jaime said. "And it's not like I keep a diary..."

_See? _Truewell said. _This is exactly the same. There are some things that she doesn't need to know about._

"I'm not hiding how far things went with Will last night. I lost my legs and my arm, they've been replaced with robot limbs and now I'm some kind of secret agent for the government," Jaime said. "There's a difference."

_There is a difference, yes, but it's the same idea. You're protecting her, Jaime. From things that she doesn't need to know about. Things that could __**hurt**__ her._

"That's just an excuse," Jaime said. "I have told Becca everything important that's ever happened to me, hurtful, embarrassing, everything. I don't keep secrets from her. And now, this is the biggest thing to happen in my life in, well, ever - and I have to lie to her about it. I'm lying to her just walking in front of her now. Every time she sees me and I _don't_ tell her, I'm lying. How the hell am I supposed to keep doing this?"

_You do it because you have to. If you tell her about what we are doing, she'll be in danger._

"And what about the danger to me? When things go bad, when I have nobody else, she's there for me. It's just the two of us, and we've always had each other to lean on. I'm barely hanging on as it is, Ruth, and now I can't talk to her...I just **have** to tell her at some point. I can't hide this from her forever. It's impossible."

Jaime heard Truewell swallow nervously on the other end of the line. _Jaime, I want you to know something, _she said. _Between the two of us, everything is safe to say, okay? I'm here to help you. But, please, for your own good, and for Rebecca's - don't tell anyone else._

"...okay," Jaime said quietly, "I won't, I'll try, but - how? How do you do it, Ruth? How does this not drive you crazy?"

_I've spent my adult life working in places like Berkut. You get used to not telling things to people, for their own good. _Jaime heard Truewell take a fresh breath._ But you can make new friends in here. And those friends - they can save your life. Literally, sometimes. Just knowing someone else agrees with you about what you're doing can change everything, Jaime, and you might be surprised whom that could be._

There was silence on the line as Jaime thought about that. "Maybe," Jaime said, and paused again. "But Nathan's such a jerk," she said with a smile.

Truewell laughed softly. _Okay,_ she said, _maybe not Nathan. But there are others here at Berkut. He's not the only voice in your ear._

Jaime relaxed a little deeper into the water, her smile just an inch or so above the surface. "Yeah, I suppose," she said. "Thanks for listening, and - sorry for making your job so difficult."

_I'm not doing this just for Berkut, _Truewell said._ You can call me any time, and I'll pick up or call you right back. I'm here for __**you**__, Jaime._

Jaime was quiet for a moment after that. "Thanks." She idly splashed around for a second. "Well. I've got a few more minutes before Will will let me out of here. What else do you need to cover?"

_Nothing else. _Papers shuffled around on Truewell's desk. _Tell me about Rebecca's robot. You seem really proud of her._

"Oh, yeah," Jaime said. "I spent all of yesterday splicing wires for the sensors. Becca has this insane color code chart for every cable, and she said to me, 'No, no, Jaime, the yellow ones on top, and the brown ones go **there**', and..."

* * *

Jonas Bledsoe locked the door to his office and laid down on his couch. He was the kind of man who would stay in his office long into the night, as long as the job took, but he realized that he was too old to make a contest out of it. The couch gave his home away from home some desperately needed livability, and proved its valor whenever his back acted up. For a good long time, staying in shape had counteracted the obvious effects of aging, but even then he had noticed that he was getting slower and easier to tire. No more running around getting his hands dirty in the four corners of the world; other people did that for him now.

After a few minutes, Bledsoe opened his eyes. This one had gone from a laydown to a powernap, but he was okay with that, because it meant waking up with his body in a sleeping state. The best feeling in the world, as far as he was concerned, was the stretching after total relaxation, working his joints and feeling the power return to his limbs. Like working a kink out of the garden hose and suddenly getting full pressure again.

Reinvigorated, Bledsoe walked back around his desk and sat down. No alerts in the computer, but the four-hourly fractal intelligence update was due in half an hour. That would generate some work, at least. Still, there were no immediate fires to put out, so he decided to check how the work on the nanotech weapon captured from the warehouse was coming along. He picked up his phone and dialed down to the secure lab section. After a few rings, the phone picked up.

"Yo," the male voice on the other end answered. Bledsoe didn't recognize it, and so he pulled the profiles of the new workers onto his computer screen.

"This is Bledsoe," he said. "Who am I speaking to?"

"I'm Al, dude," the voice answered. "Cool place you got here."

Bledsoe pulled up the profile on his computer. Alfred Montano, mechatronics expert from CalSci. The stupid grin on the profile picture meshed nicely with the voice.

"I'm overjoyed you like the facilities," Bledsoe said, sounding distinctly underjoyed. "Now give me a progress report on your job, Mr. Montano."

"Harsh, dude," Al said, still in his stupid-grin voice. "I gotta say, we're all a little - you know? Not with it. Hang on, dude, I got Karl for you. Nice meeting you!"

"Do not announce me like that!" said another voice, older and fainter, and Bledsoe got a few seconds of various noises as the handset on the other side switched hands. "Yes, hello? I am speaking to Mr. Bledsoe?"

"The very same," Bledsoe said, switching the profile display. Karl Jaworski, DARPA's go-to expert for nanobiotechnology. "Professor Jaworski, I assume?"

"Is me, yes," Jaworski said. "Mr. Bledsoe, I - forgive manners, hello - Mr. Bledsoe, I cannot work like this. You must find a replacement. I am sorry."

"Professor Jaworski," Bledsoe said, feeling the patience being sucked out right through his ear. "What, _exactly_, is the problem?"

"I was not told that you want me to work on a chemical weapon," Jaworksi said, "but I say, good, let me look. Is nanotechnology, your...Mr. Kim, that is his name, yes?"

"Yes," Bledsoe said.

"That is what he says. Is nanotechnology. And he gives me a report from this Dr. Anthros, another of your people, and I have hundred questions and nobody knows anything down here. Where is this man, he is on vacation to a nice place? Your Mr. Kim - and I am sorry, I do not like talking like this, but he is useless, knows nothing about the weapon. Where do I start, Mr. Bledsoe? Where do I _start_? And another thing -"

"Let me stop you right there, Professor," Bledsoe said. "Dr. Anthros is not available at this time, but he is our foremost authority on the nanotechnology employed in the weapon. Everything we know is in his report. Anything that is not in this report is simply unknown at this time. That is why you were brought here. It is your job to complete the report, as quickly as possible. So I suggest you get to work."

"No, I cannot," Jaworski said. "I absolutely cannot, Mr. Bledsoe."

"What do you need?" Bledsoe asked. "Whatever you need, if it exists, we can have it here by tomorrow. Lab equipment, materials, I don't care _what_ it is - but I need these results. Do you understand that?"

"I understand you perfectly," Jaworski said. "I am not being difficult - if I am, I am sorry, Mr. Bledsoe, I do not come here to annoy you, I hate when people do this with me, so I am sorry, again. But -" Jaworski took a breath - "I am not qualified. I do not understand what the molecular mechanism does, how this _kurwa_ technology works. There are footnotes in this report that are like - doctoral thesis yet to be written. I look at it, and ask: what is happening here? I do not understand it."

"What _do_ you understand, then?" Bledsoe asked.

Jaworksi sighed at the other end. "The bottom of the device, it contains many small tanks. Most are partially full of reactant, we identify phosphorous, fluorine, methanol, other precursors. But one tank is very special, very elaborate. I think it is - was intended to hold nanotechnology precursor - I call it, the backbone. If I was to build agent, I would start with backbone that self-assembles entire agent when exposed to proper conditions, so this is what I think was done. All tanks connect to reactor vessel with many valves for injecting of precursors at a correct time. Now, if we had sample of the backbone, I could _maybe_ identify maker from chemical signature. All nanotechnology designers I know have very particular way of making backbones - I prefer to start with methylation reactions, far too energetic to have around -"

"Professor Jaworski," Bledsoe said, raising his voice just enough. "Can you, or can you not, identify this - 'backbone' from the agent itself?"

"No, no, backbone is fundamentally changed by process, reaction groups added and taken away many times. Impossible to determine after reaction has finished, and the backbone tank is completely clean, perhaps on purpose."

Bledsoe rubbed his eyes. "When will you know more about the device or the agent?"

"Is very difficult," Jaworski said. "Many new concepts, but I think the basic of it, maybe I can understand. If you can send more notes of Dr. Anthros, as much as you have, I will look at them, and maybe then I understand more."

"I'll have someone show you the electronic archive," Bledsoe sighed. "Is Major Walker there, too?"

"Yes, he is here," Jaworski said. "I will look at notes, we can start work next week, I think, Mr. Bledsoe. A good day."

Jonas Bledsoe's blood pressure leveled off in a region his doctor wouldn't like. Several sublevels deeper, the handset was duly handed to the third of the new researchers.

"Major Walker here, Sir," came a snappy report. Ross Walker, Major in the US Air Force and liason for Advanced Project Development at the Groom Lake base. Doctorate in Materials Engineering. "I am forced to agree with Professor Jaworski's assessment, Sir. We're out of our depth here."

"You're familiar with high-tech munitions, Major?" Bledsoe asked.

"Yes, Sir," Walker answered. "If it goes boom, I can tell you how it's built."

"Well?" Bledsoe said. "Tell me what you know."

"I consulted with one of your men, Lieutenant Jordan - he observed the dispersal mechanism in action. The mechanical half is simple enough, it works a lot like a cropduster. Well, except all the parts are custom, from the first servo to the last washer. Whoever built it didn't think to use standard piping, joints, valves, motors - anything, really. The main logic is confined to several printed circuit boards that also do not resemble any commercial off the shelf components I've ever seen. Not even the microcontrollers have product IDs. What we have here, Sir, is an act of God, a mechanism with no identifiable manufacturing chain. As I'm sure you can imagine, this will complicate any attempt to determine how it works or where it came from immensely."

"Major, in your opinion, why would someone design a weapon in this way?"

"First, to frustrate any attempt at tracing its origin, Sir," Walker said. "This is not cost-effective in the least, and the effort made to manufacture non-standard parts far exceeds that of procuring sensitive parts on the black market. There is no parts list, no serial numbers to trace on any of this."

"And secondly?"

"Because they can, Sir. Some of these components have details so fine and smooth that they could only have been made with some kind of nano-deposition process, and I don't know of any lab in the world that could turn out parts like this."

"You're working for one, Major," Bledsoe said. "And I know who has the other."

"Sir?" Walker asked.

"One of our - alumni," Bledsoe said. "The name's Sara Corvus."

* * *

Becca was still sitting on the floor of the living room, scanning the pages of straightened code governing her robot for bugs and improvements, when a pop-up announced the arrival of an eagerly anticipated email. Becca took a quick look around, then opened the email.

_gmhfeynman,_

_that makes this harder. If Bledsoe's already figured out who you are, this won't be safe much longer._

_Don't freak out. If you change your routine, they'll know for sure you've seen them, and then the gloves come off._

_I hate doing this, but in this situation, there's really no other way. We have to meet in person. I'm in the San Francisco area, but I'm ready to travel. I'm leaving the choice of meeting spot and time up to you. Look for a black windbreaker and a red ballcap. If you don't show within half an hour of the agreed time, I'm gone._

_Again, don't freak out. They want you panicking and giving yourself away. I can help you, but you need to do what I tell you when I tell you._

_Oscar_

Becca saw a shadow start to slide across her screen and snapped the netbook shut. She looked up and saw Will standing next to her, craning his neck in an attempt to see what was on the screen. "Do you mind?" she said, and narrowed her eyes at Will's intrusion. "A bit of privacy, maybe? Jeez."

"I'm...I didn't mean to, ah, startle you, Rebecca," Will said.

Becca read that as something closer to _I dinnt mean to starrle you_, and though she knew what he meant, she kept up the silent stare.

Will flipped through a series of possible ways what he just said could have been misinterpreted or been insulting, but after a moment, he remembered who he was talking to. "I didn't mean to frighten you, Rebecca," he said, his words dragged out into a mockery of enunciation supported by wild gestures. "I need your help to move the couch. So you can show me the robot. Okay?"

"I'm not retarded, you know, just deaf," Becca said. She put her netbook on the end table and stood up. "I wasn't born this way, either, so don't think I don't know how words are supposed to sound. I don't slur or stutter my words."

_So much for 'nice'_, Will thought, _but for Jaime's sake.._. "You're right, you speak very clearly," he said, still exaggerating his words a bit. "Jaime said you two work on it all the time. She is very proud of your work. I thought you should know."

Becca nodded, and took her hands off her hips. "Thanks, I guess," she said.

Will struggled to find a way to continue the brief moment of civility between himself and this strangely aggressive entity in front of him. "Yes, so...Jaime never told me how you lost your hearing. What happened?" Will felt his panic rise along with Becca's eyebrows. "If, ah, I'm sorry if this is too forward. I didn't mean to pry."

To Will's relief, Becca didn't start shouting or crying or tearing his face off. She just nodded. "I did something stupid when I was younger. I took a whole bottle of antibiotics at once because I was sick, and it killed the cells in my cochlea that pick up sound."

Will nodded. "Gentamicin, am I right? That is known for ototoxicity," he said, this time speaking too quickly for Becca to pick it up. "Have you considered getting cochlear implants? We're making great strides in technology, so you could have much of your hearing restored in a few months and -"

"Yeah, pass," Becca said. Will couldn't quite get used to the way she stared straight at his face when she talked to him. "First, we can't even come close to affording the surgery, and secondly, I don't want 'most' of my hearing back. I want **all** of it back. And I don't want to have some plastic thing sticking out of the side of my head so I can have some limited hearing in one ear. I read the journals that they have in the library, you know, so I'll wait until they sort out real ear-replacement implants in ten years."

Will smiled warmly. "The future's getting closer all the time, Rebecca. You'd be amazed what we can already do today."

Becca raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I bet. For fifty grand or so. I'll wait until we can afford your future, Dr. Anthros."

After another pause that left Will with an intense urge to say something, Becca looked over to her robot, then back to Will. "So, robot?"

"You know, Rebecca, maybe we should wait for your big sister to get out of the bath," Will said, then started digging around in his pocket. Becca figured his cell phone had just gone off, and her suspicions were confirmed when he pulled a plastic slab out of his pants.

He turned to the side and started to whisper, but Becca could still read most of what he was saying. _Andros near. No, I'm not busy. Yes, I can be somewhere private. Give me a minute. corvus? Yes, I will be there soon._

Will hung up the phone and smiled at Becca. "Yes, like I said, we should just be nice and wait for Jaime to finish up in the bathroom. I have got to take this phone call - you know how work is, don't you?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Becca said, and scooped up her netbook on her way down the hall to her room.

* * *

Jaime stood before Becca's room, clean and in fresh clothes, and fought her nerves. Her right hand hovered near the switch mounted next to the door, where a cable snaked unceremoniously through a small hole in the wall and into Becca's room. Jaime pressed the switch; inside Becca's room, an array of unobtrusive but clearly visible lights started flashing calmly. It was one of Becca's electronics projects, combined with Jaime's DIY handiwork skills, and it made for a decent enough way to knock on the door of a deaf girl's room. After a few seconds, the door opened a crack, and Becca peered through it, looking up to her big sister's face.

"Can I come in?" Jaime asked.

"Sure," Becca said, and opened the door the rest of the way. Jaime walked into the room as Becca hopped back onto her bed and cleared a space in her scattered drawings and printouts that she had spread over her covers. "What's up with Will?" she asked as she settled back against the headboard. "One second he's all interested in seeing my robot, the next you suddenly have to take a bath and you look like he's making you do it, and then he's trying to...bond with me or something."

"Becca, please," Jaime said. "Will is just...he worries a lot. But he's a nice guy, you know, down deep."

"Real deep, I'll bet," Becca said.

"I know you're not his biggest fan, but he really wants to make this work. Us, Becca, he wants us. And he really does want to see the robot, it's all he's been talking about since I told him we were working on it."

"Yeah, so we were gonna move the couch so we'd be ready when you got back, but he got a phone call - something important, he said - and he walked outside," Becca said. "Clearly he's all about us and the robot." She kept staring at Jaime's face for a second, waiting for her to say something. "So...what's up, sis? You look like you have something to tell me."

Jaime's eyes narrowed. "What do I look like when I have something to tell you?" she asked. "Do I make a face or something?"

Becca smiled. "Yeah, actually - your eyes, they're open a little more than usual, your cheekbones drop, and you keep on opening and closing your mouth like you want to say something but can't figure out how to start. Like this -" Becca said, then mimed opening and closing her mouth in the manner of a dignified aquarium fish. When her demonstration concluded, she bounced over next to her sister. "So, come on, tell me, sis. You can trust me with, whatever."

"Well," Jaime said, "I got this...this offer. From my boss, actually. You know, I told him about all the...stuff you do, with the robot - God, I must have told everyone by now, I'm really horrible about it! - and he made a suggestion. Now, Becca, I know you've got friends at your school, but - have you ever thought about going somewhere else? You know, like a private school for...talented people? One that actually has a robotics program you could join and kick some serious robotics ass in?"

"Why would I want to do that? I've got all I need here. Parts, a kickass computer to test on, and Kate's gonna start coming over after her summer math camp wraps up so we can work on her projects, too." Becca smiled again. "Besides, I couldn't work without you as my evil assistant, could I."

"Kate's coming over?" Jaime asked. "When were you going to tell me about that, Becca?"

"Uh, since when do I have to let you know when my best friend comes over?" Becca asked, furrowing her brow at Jaime. "You didn't have a problem with it during the school year."

"Yes, but we're...in a different situation now," Jaime said, and regretted it almost before she said it out loud. "I mean, financially. We have money. We can start thinking about your future."

"And my future's doing just fine, Jaime," Becca said. "My comp-sci professor friend down at CalSci said that if my robot is good enough, she might petition for me to get early entry on work merit." She sat at the edge of the bed next to Jaime. "So, forget about that - it's not that, right? What are you **really** worried about?"

_Think, Jaime._

"Well, Becca, you remember...last week? When I got mugged on the way to work?" Jaime tried not to blink. "I've been thinking, and, you know, it's cheap here, but - it's not exactly a safe neighborhood. And I guess I didn't worry about it before, we never had the money to do anything about it, but now we do and - and I guess I just don't ever want to get a phone call that something happened to you, on the way to school, or when you were hanging out with Kate, or just going out, or - I don't know. The point is, you could be somewhere - safer. That's what my boss thinks, too. One of his points, actually."

"God, Jaime, I'll be just fine. I know how to get around, and I have friends to hang out with. Buddy system. I'm safe." She looked at Jaime, eyebrows cocked. "What does this Bledsoe guy have to do with this, anyway? He's telling you a lot about how to run your life when you're supposed to be organizing his."

"He's **not** ordering me around," Jaime said, a little forceful at that. "He just...he made a suggestion. It made sense when he said it. And I've been thinking about it, if it would be better for you."

"No," Becca said. "It's not. I can't leave you alone, Jaime, all by yourself - not now. There's only one place I'm going to be, and that's right here. Okay?"

"Yes, okay," Jaime said, smiled and closed her eyes briefly. "Yes. You're right." She opened her eyes again. "You're right. Rebecca Louise Sommers, how did you get so smart?"

"Just my turn, I guess," Becca said with a smile, and bumped shoulders with Jaime. "Love ya, big sis."

"I love you, too," Jaime said, and something like an honest grin finally appeared on her face when she showed the corresponding hand sign. "Still not buying you a car, though."

Becca faked a shocked expression. "Jaime! I wouldn't dare to ask for something like that." Her expression gave way to a smile. "This time."

"And that's why I have to keep my eyes on you, little sister," Jaime said.

* * *

William Anthros exited Jaime's apartment building with an upturned collar on his coat and his right hand in the coat pocket, wrapped around his cellphone. He glanced once to the left, once to the right, then resumed walking, taking the direct route to his car - a Lexus IS F in a metallic black tone. He unlocked the car with the press of a button on the keyfob and walked around the back of the car as its turn signals flashed briefly. His left hand reached for the driver's door and opened it. He climbed into the car, brought his cellphone out of the pocket and closed the door behind him. The car's interior lights faded back into their "off" state while the phone paired itself to the car's onboard system. Will pressed a button on the car's steering wheel.

"Speak - command - now," a pleasant female voice answered.

"Dial Berkut," Will said.

"Dialing - Berkut," the female voice repeated.

The phone rolled through a small symphony of screeches and clacking sounds before finally settling on what resembled a dialtone. After a few rings, the call was answered.

"Bledsoe," Jonas Bledsoe said, by way of greeting. "Are you alone _now_, Anthros?"

"Please," Will said. "I was with Jaime's sister - she wasn't going hear anything. But I'm in my car now, like you wanted."

"Good," Bledsoe said. "Next question. Are you clean right now?"

"I sweep my car every week for bugs and transmitters, Mr. Bledsoe."

"I didn't ask if your damn car is clean, did I?" Bledsoe replied. "You, Anthros. Have you been drinking or raiding your chemistry shelf again?"

Will stared at his dashboard and fumed. "I'm not high, if that's what you're asking."

"You know exactly what I'm asking," Bledsoe said. "Stop trying to dodge me. Yes or no."

"I just told you that I wasn't high, goddammit!" Will shouted. "_Sir._"

"If your phone had a built-in drug tester I'd be telling you to piss on it right now," Bledsoe said calmly. "But I think we can move on."

"_Good,_" Will said. "Now, if you're done insulting me, why are you interrupting my 'vacation'?"

"I'm pulling you off the bench, Anthros. Turns out I got problems and you're the best solution I have for the moment."

Will smiled. "Oh, do tell - what could you possibly need me for? Your so-called replacements not quite measuring up, are they?"

"They're having a little trouble getting started, and I don't have the time to waste," Bledsoe said. "Now, Anthros, when I sent you on vacation? Let's consider that...bankruptcy. I'm here to tell you there's a way to build credit. You go left when I say right, and you're straight back to nothing. Are we clear on that?"

"Sure. Just tell me what this problem that you just have to have me for is."

"I didn't hear a 'yes' and I didn't hear a 'Sir'," Bledsoe said. "Am I going deaf?"

"Yes, _sir_," Will said, throwing in a sarcastic salute. "So, what is the problem, exactly? I can be at Wolf Creek in an hour - less if 880 isn't backed up."

"Negative," Bledsoe said, "you're not coming within ten miles of this facility until you're officially back on the team. Get on your laptop and dial in - the team will tell you what they need."

"I'm sure they'll appreciate some more experienced aid," Will said, "Sir."

"Try not to fuck this up," Bledsoe replied. Then there was a click, and the line went dead for a moment.

"Call - terminated," the female voice said.

Will didn't move. After a few seconds of his hand on the wheel and steady breaths, he allowed himself a small feeling of triumph.

* * *

Across the bay in Alameda, a steel door slammed open in an abandoned warehouse, and a middle-aged man with a carefully groomed mustache, short black hair and a three-piece black suit burst through. Diego Valdez haphazardly bounced off a pile of rotting cardboard boxes and resumed running, arms flailing out in a successful bid not to slip and land on his teeth. The two men who poured out of the door behind him seemed to get all their shopping done at the army surplus store; they wore jump boots with frayed shoestrings, black cargo pants and blue one-size-fits-all bomber jackets. To their credit, that meant the pistols in their hands didn't look very out of place.

As Valdez stomped down the hallway, leaving a roostertail of scattered newspaper and discarded junk food wrappers in his wake, the gunmen fired after him, shattering squares of glass and shredding the peeling drywall in abandoned offices. Valdez screamed as the shards of broken glass blew out towards him and shielded his face with his Gieves & Hawkes jacket, cutting deep slashes in the fabric. Realizing that staying in front of the shooters would only lead to them getting their eye in, he swerved left down a stairwell. A stack of cardboard boxes filled with decaying reams of paper stood on the landing, and he pulled the boxes down the stairs behind him. One of them almost broke his ankle as it overtook him going down the stairs, but the adrenaline of actually being shot at let him swallow the pain and keep running.

The gunmen quickly followed him through the door, but found the boxes blocking their path.

"Go around! Go around!" one of them shouted to the other, and so they did, leaving Valdez just the barest moment to breathe out, grit his teeth and continue his escape. The fire exit in front of him was closed; with no other option, he threw his shoulder against the door, forcing it open and nearly ramming himself against the handrail behind it. He skipped down the small stairway to the alley beyond, then stopped and looked around, desperate to gain his bearings. The thugs announced themselves with more noise from a nearby door - another exit from the warehouse. That made Valdez's decision for him, and he ran down the alley in the direction that didn't take him past that door. The pain from his ankle rose again, but he couldn't slow down, not with their shouting behind him.

Then there was a BANG!, and soon another, bullets zipping past Valdez and not missing by much. The gunfire closing in on Valdez motivated him to run as fast as he could, and he slipped onto the main street behind a corner of early 20th century brickwork just in time to escape three bullets. Two blew chunks of masonry out of the corner, spraying the passersby and Valdez with ceramic dust; one traveled across the street and burst a barbershop's front window before finally stopping in the decorative wood paneling next to the "Employees Only" door. The barbershop's burglary alarm went off, and that was the right cue for the people on the streets to finally process the gunfire and start panicking.

Valdez was in the thick of it, just short of completely losing it himself, but through the people that blocked his way, the light crowd he was pushing through, he caught glimpses of his car. That was a goal, a destination, something to focus on in the final steps of running his gauntlet. With his left arm, he pushed a screaming young mother out of his way with all the consideration of an ice hockey body-check; his right hand was buried in his slacks, fumbling for the car keys. None of the faces looked familiar as he forced himself through the crowd. They barely looked human to him. He didn't have any empathy or finesse to spare. He had to get to the car, had to make it, and screw whoever he had to bash out of his way to do that.

He was twenty yards away from the corner when his pursuers cleared the alley. They, too, started to push through the crowd, the heavy thud of their boots catching up to Valdez. Valdez, finally so close to his car that he could almost smell the paintjob, forced himself through the gap between a man and a newspaper vending machine. That got him a tall caramel latté spilled over the back of his jacket, but Valdez powered through. His right hand clutched at the keyfob and his thumb hammered the button to unlock the doors. This made him a stationary target, and one of the pursuers raised his pistol, seeing an easy - or at least doable - shot to Valdez's back. He took a split second to aim, and then he fired once.

Valdez flinched down, an old woman behind him crumbled to the ground with a pool of blood seeping through the shoulder of her blouse, and the gunman brought his pistol back into position for a follow-up shot. Valdez threw a quick glance backward, and through the screaming, teeming crowd, his eyes met the gunman's for an instant. The door of Valdez's car finally popped open, and the terrified Spaniard jumped inside. The other pursuer all but jumped the gunman, grappled for the pistol and barely managed to yank it downward before the next shot rang out. This bullet skipped off the sidewalk, slammed through the sheet metal of a nearby panel van's passenger door and set off that van's alarm for bonus cacophony points. After a brief struggle, the gunman forced his partner off himself, but the chance was gone.

"Are you nuts?" the gunman shouted.

"**You're** nuts!" his partner answered, trying to outdo the alarms and the screaming crowd. To his credit, that seemed to work. "We need to get away - now!"

"What about -" the gunman started, then looked back to where his quarry had been.

Valdez's dark blue car backed up for a foot or two, but then peeled away from the curb with the horrible screech of too-slick tires faiing to find immediate purchase. That was followed by the lurch of a sudden gear change, and then the car picked up speed and raced down the road, fleeing the scene with little ceremony. The license plate was already too far away for either of the men to read, though not for lack of trying on the gunman's part. He looked back to his partner, and his free hand curled to a fist. Finally, reluctantly, he returned his weapon to the holster underneath his jacket.

"Come on," the other man said, "come on. Now." In the middle of the chaos, the two ran back into the alley they had come from. No sense sticking around for the cops.

Valdez ran the next red light in his car, going about 20 miles per hour over the speed limit and, indeed, any sensible inner-city speed. His car swerved out of its lane a few times while he endeavoured to fix his seatbelt, but finally he gave up and focused on driving. At the intersection after that, he slowed down, took a right and rejoined polite society in going with the flow of traffic. A single breath escaped his mouth. In an attempt to downshift, he felt a tugging pain in his right arm; a quick glance showed a bloody hole in his suit, with more blood dripping down onto the center console. He cursed to himself, but all things considered, it could have been worse. For now, he was still able to drive, although the post-adrenaline crash was already starting to set in. If he could get away, if people would stop trying to kill him for just a few minutes, maybe he could find a nice quiet alley. If he was really lucky, maybe he would manage to do something about his wound with the car's first aid kit before blacking out.

But Diego Valdez, Defense Attaché of the Spanish Embassy to the United States, had to acknowledge one fact: things didn't look so good for him.

* * *

Tradecraft Commentary: Evasion

It's in almost every espionage thriller ever made: the hero is chased by the bad guys and has to get away from his pursuers, evade their manhunt and lie low. But how does that work?

Let's start with the simplest scenario: you're literally running away from people chasing you. What you need to do is break contact, that is, disrupt the line of sight from the pursuer to you. There are multiple ways to break contact. You could simply outrun your pursuers, but that requires a substantial fitness gap, and if your pursuers are in a car, forget about it. You can try to outmaneuver them, that is, move in a way that they can't or aren't willing to follow. (Easier if they're in a car. If you're both on foot, it's stuntmen, traceurs and lunatics only, pretty much.) Or you can make a turn around a corner or run into a crowd for a brief break. If you can't break contact, you're doomed to be caught. Which is why it's silly to try to win a police chase: once the helicopters come, it's pretty much impossible to break contact. As long as they know where you are, they can keep chasing you, or move to cut you off.

Which brings us to the next step: escape the manhunt. Once you have broken contact, your pursuers will try to reestablish it. To do that, they will continue following the route they think you took, blockade alternative routes and then start searching the area they've blocked off. Your goal is to escape this search grid without being seen, which would start the whole chase over. One option is to take a route out of the area that isn't blockaded. It's rarely possible to block off every way out, and even then, setting up blockades takes time. Still, this requires either a lucky guess, some idea of which routes will be blocked, or a truly "creative" escape plan. Another option is to hide within the search grid. No canvass can truly check every hiding spot, but obviously a large enemy force searching a small area can be more thorough than a small force combing a large area. Hiding in the search grid is a gamble; if you're not found, your pursuers may break off the search on the assumption that you slipped out, and this can save you the trouble of finding a way past the perimeter. However, if you are found, you are now in an established perimeter, with all easy exits blocked off, and you've given your opponents time to rally and call in reinforcements. A final option is to break the blockade along one escape route. That is obviously a very risky strategy and establishes contact at that point, giving your pursuers an idea where you went, but can be worthwhile if the enemy is spread thin and can't immediately pursue you from there.

Once you have broken the perimeter, your best bet is distance, distance, distance. At this stage, your pursuers will likely cast a wider net, trying to block off major routes out of the area. The search grid will become wider and stretched thinner, especially since your pursuers must take your traveling speed into account and calculate a maximum distance you could have traveled from your last known position. The bigger this number, the better for your chances of escape. Take note, however, that traveling fast is by itself problematic. If you have a car, you are limited to roads, where vehicles might be stopped; going fast makes you stick out and may lead to a renewed pursuit. Trains, ships and airplanes all work according to plans and pre-set routes. Resource-heavy pursuers will try to lock down train stations, sea ports and airports. If this sounds hopeless, then consider that this stage is a game of resource allocation: no pursuer can be literally everywhere, and the wider you can stretch their resources, the bigger the holes in their search net will get.

All of this assumes that you're moving in an urban environment with lots of people in it. Out in Mother Nature, the situation becomes somewhat harder - the US military's SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape) School is supposed to teach its students how to escape a manhunt in a natural environment, but most learn quickly that evasion isn't easy. Moving through a natural environment such as a forest is slower going than through urban terrain, you will leave better tracks, and with no other people around, tactics such as using bloodhounds or a helicopter with a FLIR (Forward Looking InfraRed) camera become viable. The latter, in particular, is very hard to evade, but dogs are no walk in the park, either. On the upside, the terrain is harder to travel through for your pursuers, too, and there are few obvious travel routes to follow.

If you do manage to escape, congratulations! But don't use your own credit card to pay for that victory dinner, or you'll be running again soon...


	2. Chapter 2

Hey, everyone! Thanks for the kind reviews and the patience! Here's the next chapter, expanding on the situation. Today, we've got commentary on gunshot wounds, courtesy of co-author Kasey Kagawa. Have fun!

* * *

Sitting in the driver's seat of his car, Will had the keyboard portion of his laptop laying up against his gut and chest; the screen was corresponding folded against the wheel, as far as possible, and the hinge sat edge-on in his lap. It wasn't the most ergonomic way to use his laptop, but it worked. Comfort took a back seat to efficiency. The quicker he could finish helping the incompetents Bledsoe had hired, the sooner he could get back to what he was really focused on: the Paradise and San Francisco attacks.

Admittedly, _some_ of their requests for clarification made sense. Will hadn't intended his notes to be used for anything but his own reference, and so there was shorthand to explain, abbreviations to replace and just some general housekeeping in aligning scattered pieces of text in a sensible sequence. Will was far more critical of their independent attempts to make sense of the Paradise weapon - Jaworski's scribblings, in particular, betrayed an attempt to write "I don't know" in the most complicated verbiage humanly possible. But then, Will mused, one couldn't expect much from a substitute, let alone a last-minute replacement for **his** job.

It didn't take long for him to work his way through all the pending requests, and only a second after the last keystroke, he folded his laptop together and deposited it on the passenger seat. He took a moment to clear his head, and then touched the button on the steering wheel.

"Speak - command - now," the female voice said.

"Dial Berkut," Will said, a little more forceful this time.

"Dialing - Berkut," the female voice replied.

It only took a few seconds for Bledsoe to answer this time. He had been waiting for Will to make contact, obviously, and Will enjoyed that.

"I finished your errand," Will said. "Feel free to call me _any_ time you need me to do my job."

"I'll keep that in mind," Bledsoe said dryly. "Now, one more thing before I can let you go. We need your opinion on the Paradise and Bay Area attacks. Jaworski's report is still a week off. So, what are your thoughts?"

"...did it take you the whole week to come up with the idea of asking me?" Will shot back, and bile rose in his throat. "Sara. Corvus. She tried to kill **me**, tried to kill _Jaime_, and -"

"I am _aware_ of the threat that Corvus poses, Anthros," Bledsoe says, keeping his even tone. "And I know _exactly_ what she did to us and to you when she escaped, I was **there**, if you'll remember."

"Then we both know **damn** well that she's the only one who could have pulled off the attacks. And I don't understand - I really do **not** fucking get - why the hell I have been gone for a week and there is still no progress whatsoever in finding her and putting her down for good!"

"Were you lying to me about being on stimulants, Anthros?" Bledsoe asked flatly.

"_No_. Apparently, I'm the _only_ one in this organization that's thinking clearly. We need to find Corvus and her terrorist friends before they succeed and kill a few hundred thousand people!"

"And how do you propose we do that?" Bledsoe said. "We don't have the resources to run a manhunt all by ourselves. What we can do - and what we are doing - is to analyze the available intelligence and prepare for the moment we have a target. Then we can strike. But until that time comes, finding Corvus falls to the other agencies."

"We are the only ones!" Will shouted at his dashboard. "The only ones who can stop her, and only God knows what her next move is!" He took heavy breaths, and the calm he tried for kept slipping away from him. "If we can't track her down, she will destroy _everything_. Do you think we have problems now, with one rogue augment? Think about what a catastrophe it will be if she sells her bionics. If someone out there makes more augments. Do you even realize what her being alive means? It means our most advanced technology is out there. It has been out there for _three years_, completely out of our sight. I don't know about you, but that thought _terrifies_ me!"

"Anthros, you **will** get a grip on yourself, **right now**," Bledsoe said. "You have said your piece and that is enough of that. I know _exactly_ how dangerous a rogue augment is - that's why we have the security systems."

"Lot of good that did us," Will muttered.

"And while Corvus is our best lead at the moment, that is because she's our only lead." Bledsoe paused for a moment. "That _would_ be nice and tidy, if it was really her. Only one enemy. But we have no direct evidence at all that links her to the attack, nothing circumstantial, and it doesn't look like anything more is forthcoming. So unless you know something that I don't, I suggest you stop acting like your wild speculations are as good as facts."

"She killed a dozen people breaking out of Wolf Creek," Will said, steel in his voice. "And when she finally reappeared, she fired an **anti-tank missile** at my apartment after trying to use her bionics to put a bullet in my head. I'm not speculating, Bledsoe, I'm simply looking at what we already _know_. She is well-armed, well-funded, she's is out for blood - and I'm supposed to believe her assassination attempt on the _one_ person who could figure out what happened at Paradise and that warehouse is a coincidence? She knows that without me, everything will fall apart!"

"I bet Truewell is looking forward to your psych eval next week," Bledsoe said. "Try to enjoy the rest of your **vacation**, and do _not_ share your theories with Sommers. I don't need her head spinning from your paranoid crap."

Click.

* * *

After spending a few seconds getting his racing thoughts and emotions back under control, Will reentered Jaime's apartment discreetly; he didn't want to make too much of a show of it, so he closed the door quietly behind himself and slipped his shoes off before entering the living room on his light grey socks. Becca was back at work, crouched next to her netbook and still adjusting the software. However, Jaime was right beside her, inspecting the robot's right side from a low angle. Before her transformation, Will might have been able to sneak in this way, given that he had a talent for quiet entrances honed from childhood and that Jaime appeared quite engrossed in the robot. But on his next step, she looked up at him, and he knew she'd heard him coming in perfectly well.

"Can we talk in my room, Will?" she asked.

"Ah, yes, we can - talk," Will said. "What is it?"

Jaime turned to Becca and tapped her on the shoulder. Jaime signed something to her little sister, and Becca nodded. Jaime got up from the floor and walked toward Will, motioning for him to get into her room. He didn't know what this was about - maybe something Jaime had talked with Truewell about - but he did follow her in. Once inside, Jaime closed the door and locked it behind her. _Alright, what's going on now?_ Will thought, anxiety rising in him.

"Will, you ran out on Becca for a phone call," Jaime said, trying to sound even. "And I'm really not okay with that. Ditching Becca like that is rude, it's demeaning, and it shows absolutely _zero_ respect for her. She's my little sister, Will, not just some annoying kid that _you_ get to ignore."

"Jaime, I was out for five minutes," Will said, then glanced at his watch. "Okay. Ten minutes," he fibbed. "I was out for ten minutes."

"Try twenty-three," Jaime said. "Becca timed it."

Will's brow furrowed in confusion. "...she timed it?" he asked.

"She's not stupid, Will, she knows when she's being blown off," Jaime said, hands on hips. "She told me that you ditched her for a work call."

"It was important," Will said. "Bledsoe needed my help getting the new people up to speed, and he wanted my thoughts on Paradise. I didn't just blow her off for nothing, Jaime."

"That's not the **point**, Will," Jaime said, crossing her arms. Will recognized her 'upset and angry' face, but in that moment, he didn't see Jaime. The only thing in front of him was a pissed-off augment, and that feeling racing down his spine and into his gut was terror. "You don't blow off my little sister, _ever_. You **will** show Becca some Goddamn respect, William Anthros. **Got it**?"

"Yes, yes!" Will stammered, shrinking back from her. The color drained from his cheeks. "Yes, I'm - I'm sorry, Jaime! I didn't mean - I won't let it happen again."

Jaime was taken aback at Will's reaction. "Will?" she said, more softly than before. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare -"

Will straightened back up and reclaimed some of his composure. "No," he said. "No, Jaime, I wasn't afraid, I was just -" he took a breath - "your reaction surprised me. I didn't expect you to get so upset. That's all."

"Okay," Jaime said. "Look, she just has enough problems in the rest of her life, being deaf, and then being as bright and headstrong as she is. I'm just making sure she gets the respect she deserves," Jaime said, still scolding him.

Jaime stopped for a second while Will still eyed her warily. She sighed and uncrossed her arms. "She really is brilliant, you know," she said. "She's smart like you're smart. I think if you'll give her a chance, you'll really like her."

"Ah, yes," Will said, still pulling himself together. "I - err, I really am sorry, Jaime." He took a step back towards Jaime and scratched the back of his head. "That was unfair of me. I _do_ want to get to know her better. I think we got along quite well before I had to leave. I think. I don't quite understand teenagers."

Jaime smiled. "You learn to fake it."

Will returned her smile, and there was a relaxing silence between the two of them. "Ah! I think we do still have a show to catch in the living room, right?" he said. "I saw a really interesting implementation of spring tension sensing in her self-leveling chassis design that I'm curious about."

"I'm sure she'll tell you all about it," Jaime said, and stepped toward the door to unlock it. "You and me and a couch, Will."

"It is a date," Will replied.

Jaime and Will walked back down the hallway to the living room, and to their surprise, they heard the whirring of electric motors in the living room. Becca's robot slowly rolled towards them, scanning the walls and furniture with a sensor as it went, while Becca herself was completely focused on the screen on her netbook. Black rubber smears stained the off-white carpet where Becca had shoved it back against the wall, but Jaime just stepped out of the way into the middle of the living room. Will got down on his hands and knees to get a closer look at the robot's inner workings.

The robot rolled right up to Will and jerked to a halt as it sensed his body, and Becca's head snapped up off her netbook's screen at the same time. "Oh, hey!" she said. "I got tired of waiting, so I just shoved the couch back myself. It smells really bad, by the way, Jaime. How old is that thing, anyway?"

"I think when you're alone with it, it has seniority," Jaime said. "And, uh, that's why I don't push it. Not since last time."

"I'll take care of it in the morning," Becca said as she maneuvered the robot's camera to face Will. He looked at it quizzically, and jumped a bit when Becca made it nod at him. "So, what do you think?" she asked. "I had it running a pathfinding and mapping scan when you guys came in."

"And it recognizes people?" Will asked. His head was still hidden behind the robot, as he was lost in examining its guts, so Jaime repeated Will's words in voice and sign.

"Kinda, it recognizes an obstacle and stops, and then it reads it as a person, but, yeah, it knows you're a person," Becca said.

"Hmm," Will said. He straightened back up and looked at Becca. "And the software's commercial off the shelf?"

Becca scoffs. "And pay for this? It's a mix of open source and a few of my side projects. The best things in code are free, Doctor Anthros."

Will smiled. "Of course," he said. "Where'd you learn how to build this?"

"Lots of trial and error, hobby projects," Becca said. "I've got a bunch of tiny toy bots I've stuck together in my room."

"Really?" Will asked, and stood up. "Can I see them?" He turns to Jaime. "Would that be all right with you?"

Jaime smiled and nodded. "You two kids go have fun."

Becca jumped off the couch. "Sweet! Come on, I've got a few Arduino breadboards that you'll think are _awesome_ if you like the self-levelling setup," she said as Will followed her down the hallway.

Jaime watched the two depart and smiled. _Knew that was gonna work eventually,_ she thought to herself, turned to the couch and regarded it fondly. With a little flourish, she let herself drop onto the couch, sinking into the soft surface on impact. After a few seconds of lying face down on the old fabric, Jaime turned onto her back and crawled until she had the armrest under her head. A few more minor corrective movements placed her in the optimal position. Jaime closed her eyes. A slight whirring sound to her side prompted a peek with one eye, and she saw Becca's robot trundle past, still scanning the room. She smiled, then closed her eye again and felt herself relax.

* * *

In moments like this, Richard Earlmayer wished he had stayed in business school, or rather, not been thrown out of business school. The perception amongst the general public and recently paroled criminals that living the straight and narrow life is twice as hard as a life of crime was largely true, but Earlmayer knew that it was four times as hard to be crooked but _appear_ legit. His import/export business provided ample opportunities for smuggling weapons, drugs and people across international borders, on top of the knockoff handbags, foreign liquor and toys that formed the basis for his front's income. He had a well-earned reputation for timely delivery and the utmost discretion, whether it was former Warsaw Pact weaponry, crates of uncut heroin, and even the occasional mysterious metal crate, wall-papered with warning stickers with phrases like "Biohazard" or "Radioactive". If it needed to be moved discreetly in the Pacific Rim, Earlmayer had spent the last-decade becoming the go-to man.

Which left him very little time for problems, especially problems like the one that had him waiting in his office on the street-front side of his South San Francisco warehouse. A lonely semi-truck rolled through a red light in the intersection out his window, the only other public activity for miles in the bay front warehouse district. Making the most of a thoroughly shitty situation, Earlmayer had been working on import duty paperwork for his latest shipment of Eastern European vodka when two of his employees walked through his office door. He had dispatched them to make a very special pick-up from one Diego Valdez, defense attaché from the Spanish embassy, and they were both looking very nervous about their failure to complete that task.

"One second," Earlmayer said, not looking up from his paperwork.

One of them, Keith Franklin, stood by the door inspecting the calendar taped to the side of a filing cabinet while the other, Bob Melville, stood in front of Earlmayer's desk with his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels.

Earlmayer signed the tax form and the check to go with it, and slid both into a drawer. "Well, let's hear it," he said.

"Let's hear what, boss?" Keith asked.

"Your _excuses_," Earlmayer said. "The meeting was three hours ago, you've had more than enough time to come up with something. Come on, don't tell me you can't even do that."

"You see, boss..."

"Maybe you actually are braindead," Earlmayer said, "seeing how neither of you could figure out how to answer any of my two dozen phonecalls! Don't know what button to push on your cellphone when the green paint has rubbed off, do you?"

"Boss..." Keith tried again.

"I mean, fuck! I didn't even expect you to figure out how to call me! I thought you could take calls, or at least get it right by trial and error if I called you often enough! But I was wrong, I assumed, I have seen the error of my ways. You surprise and challenge me anew, gentlemen, every single fucking day."

"Yes, boss," Keith said, hanging his head.

"Cut the sad puppy crap," Earlmayer said. "You're here, I assume moving your jaw just might be in your competence zone, so let's take it nice and slow. Did you go to the meeting?"

"Yessir," Bob answered.

"Great," Earlmayer said, "did Valdez show up?"

"Yes," Keith said, "but then -"

"Shut up," Earlmayer said. "Did I fucking ask a 'but then' question? Are you trying to narrate how your day at work went for your girlfriend, Keith? I think that's a little beyond your capabilities, don't you agree?"

"Narrating or girlfriends, Sir?" Bob asked.

"Hah!" Earlmayer answered. "Hah, we got us a fucking comedian. What's your name again, son?"

"I'm Bob."

"Shut up, Bob," Earlmayer said. "Okay, so you've blurted out that shit went wrong at the meeting, not that I didn't already figure **that** out. _What_ went wrong?"

"Well, boss," Keith said, "Valdez showed up but he didn't have the package. We asked him real nice where it was and he just looked really freaked, and then he turned tail and ran."

"Really," Earlmayer said. "Well, that's brilliant. What was your next move?"

"We followed him," Keith said. "Bob tried to shoot him but didn't get him. And, well, he kinda got away from us. We tried going after him but he was gone when we pulled around with the car, and after a while we gave up and came back here to tell you."

Earlmayer folded his hands in front of his face and sighed. After a moment, he stood up and walked towards the door to the warehouse floor. "Okay chucklenuts, follow me. Both of you, out, now."

Bob and Keith followed Earlmayer out of his office and into the loading and processing area of the warehouse. The flat concrete slab was populated with steel packing tables and folding chairs, as well as another dozen or so of Earlmayer's goons.

"Now, tell them what the fuck you two morons did today," Earlmayor said.

"We went to meet Valdez," Keith said. "He ran away, we tried to stop him and Bob shot at him, but we didn't catch him. Then we came here. That's it."

Earlmayer turned to Bob and Keith. "Okay, I'm gonna need a notepad here," he said, walking slowly towards them, "because I'm not sure I can address the many, many retarded things you just told me without a fucking list. Seriously, Keith, I'm scared I'll forget one point and send you away thinking that you did anything right here, because that's a downright poisonous fucking idea for you to have. Okay? What I'm describing here is your complete and utter failure to take even **one** action that was not _completely idiotic_."

"Yes, boss," Keith said.

"Here I was, sitting in my nice office with the A/C on, listening to the radio and thinking about my weekend, when I hear this nasty newsbite about a street shooting near where I arranged for you two _dick-in-hand retards_ to meet with Valdez. That's why you assholes had better pick up your fucking phones! I tried to reach you, either of you, hell, anyone, to tell me that the most important fucking shipment we have ever handled has not become a **clusterfuck**!"

Earlmayer took a deep breath and looked around. His other illegitimate employees had a mix of interest and fear on their faces. _Good,_ he thought.

"So," Earlmayer said, "we have my bullets in innocent bystanders, my casings all over the scene, and I wouldn't be fucking surprised if somebody put Tweedledum and Tweedledee here on YouTube by now!"

"Boss," Keith said, "I'm - uh, if I can say something."

"Oh, sure, go right ahead," Earlmayer said. "It's just going to get worse - not that I know **how** it could be worse, mind you - but if you've got something to say, Keith, by all means, share it with the world and make us all dumber for hearing it."

"Actually, boss," Keith said, trying to regain the air of competence, "we made sure that we used that gunshow ammo in our pistols. So we'd be harder to track."

"Huh," Earlmayer said, "whose idea was that?"

"Mine, Sir," Bob said.

"Wow! Isolated acts of genius!" Earlmayer said. "Now that changes the equation, I'll admit, that was a very nice idea, Bob, I'm surprised you had it but what a delightful surprise it is. So we are actually marginally less screwed, wow, what a relief. Bob, you may have saved us all with your quick thinking! Did you hang on to your gun, by the way?"

"Yessir," Bob said.

Earlmayer eyed Bob for a moment. "That means I want you to give it to me, Bob. Just, you know, to make sure you didn't lose it on a playground or drop it down the toilet."

Bob nodded and reached for his piece while Keith smoldered beside him. Earlmayer inspected the weapon, checking the magazine for ammunition and doing a quick press check to verify that there was a round chambered.

"I have just one last question, gentlemen, then I'll let you be on your way," Earlmayer said. "You said you were shooting at Valdez. Was it like this -"

Earlmayer snapped the gun up and fired a single shot in Bob's face without taking the time to aim. Keith Franklin reached for his own gun but had a shot blow through his torso before he could draw.

"- or like this?" Earlmayer said, finishing up his previous sentence. Bob was already dead and looking the part; Keith was still on his feet, right hand resting near his holster. He knew he wouldn't be able to draw before Earlmayer had the opportunity to shoot him again. He might have tried it, had he known that he had absolutely nothing more to lose in the attempt; as it was, Earlmayer shot him twice more, another in the chest and one through the side of his neck, and Keith never got the chance to fight back. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, already unconscious from shock and soon to be bled out and dead.

Earlmayer turned to the assembled masses; though not every face admitted emotion, most showed fear.

"I'm making a fucking point here," Earlmayer shouted, half in anger, half because the ringing in his ears from the gunshots made him not realise how loud he was. "**This** is what will happen to all of us, every last one of us, if we do not deliver this package. In case there are any more _geniuses_ in this crowd, that means we need Valdez to give us the package. We need him alive for that. Are we all finally on the same fucking page here?"

The shouts of "Yes", "Yes, boss" and "Yes, Sir" mingled in the air; the phrasing didn't matter, but their commitment did.

"I want Valdez in my office, and he had better be in a confessing kind of mood!" Earlmayer shouted. "Make it fucking happen!"

"Oh," Earlmayer added, a little less forceful, "and somebody clean this shit off my floor."

* * *

Diego Valdez's car was parked in a darkest corner of an underground garage, flanked by a silver-colored sedan and a dull red hatchback. Valdez had made himself a cot of sorts in the backseat, using a coat, his jacket and a blanket from the trunk as his bedding. His 60 dollar shirt was bloodied all along his right side, and its right sleeve now rested on the floor. Valdez had noticed quickly that he couldn't undress without the use of his right arm, but the short blade of a pocket knife had helped him uncover the wound. It was what one might charitably describe as 'only' a grazing shot, which meant it bled enthusiastically, hurt like hell and left him unable to do anything with his arm except keeping it elevated. But he wasn't dead yet.

Valdez had tried to fix the injury with the car's first aid kit. He had managed to fix a wound dressing on top of it with surgical tape, which was quickly bled through. Vaguely recalling his first aid training, Valdez had then put a second dressing on top, put his aluminum cigarette case on top of that and wrapped the whole thing tightly with a rolled up bandage, fixing that with more surgical tape. It hadn't really done anything useful on the pain front - in fact, the added pressure and burning sensation varied from highly annoying to very worrying - but it had stemmed the bleeding. Valdez, of course, felt absolutely miserable: exhausted, in pain, with only a few breath mints to suck on against hunger. He didn't know where to go next, only that going back to the hotel or to his _business associates_ or the next hospital were all off the table for a man in his situation.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

The Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco offered a variety of suites; it was perhaps with a self-knowing twinkle in someone's eye that Diego Valdez and his daughter, Gracia Valdez, had been booked for the Diplomat Suite. FBI agents posted outside all entrances 24/7, internal surveillance and a private secure elevator running straight to the suite meant that the Diplomat Suite was the most secure hotel room in the city, and in the aftermath of the discovery of Diego Valdez's disappearance, it became the most watched as well.

Special Agent Sandra Caulfield, 38, was the lead agent on the Valdez protective detail. Ever since Valdez's daughter reported that her father was missing this morning, Caulfield had received phone calls from the Deputy Director and the Director of the FBI, three different members of the State Department, two Diplomatic Security Service officials and the head of security for the Spanish Embassy in Washington DC, all of whom impressed upon her how vitally important it was that Agent Caulfield find and retrieve Diego Valdez as soon as humanly possible. The FBI field office had sent plenty of agents to assist; however, with Valdez somehow walking straight through what she knew to be an airtight protective detail, Caulfield could feel that something was off. That someone had betrayed them. With all of the pressure and commotion, she couldn't put her finger on it, and so she called the one man she could trust that knew how to smoke out a problem on short notice. A half an hour later, she met that man on the hotel's parking lot.

"It's been too long, Sandra," Jonas Bledsoe said as they walked through the maze of Bureau SUVs parked outside the service entrance.

"Yes, it has been, Sir." Caulfield flashed her ID at the agent posted outside the elevators and pushed the button to summon the lift. "And I hate having to see you again under these circumstances, but -"

"Brief me," Bledsoe said. "Then we'll see what we can do about that problem of yours."

"Yes, Sir." The elevators doors slid open; Caulfield and Bledsoe walked in. Caulfield waited for the doors to fully close and the elevator to start on its way up before speaking. "At approximately 1930 hours last night, Diego Valdez, the defense attaché to the Spanish Embassy, walked straight past a six-man protection detail and complete video surveillance, and vanished into the night." She handed him a photo and information sheet on Valdez. "His daughter was the first one to report him missing, and she didn't even notice until she woke up at 0700."

"And this Valdez is completely untrained?" Bledsoe asked, scanning Valdez's vita.

"No prior service either in military or intelligence," Caulfield said. "He's just a diplomat, Sir."

"So, this civilian evaded your agents and security, and no one reported him missing until this morning." Bledsoe handed Caulfield's information packet back. "You think someone's been compromised."

"Yes, Sir, I do. That's why I called you. These are hand-picked agents, the best in the local field office, so if they've been compromised..." Caulfield crossed her arms.

"Running out of people to trust is never fun," Bledsoe said. "What about his daughter, Sandra? Is she secure?"

"She has four agents with her right now, and another four in the living room of the suite," Caulfield replied. "If all of _them_ are compromised, then I'm well and truly fucked, Sir."

Bledsoe stole a glance at the display in the elevator - almost at the top. "What's her name?"

"Gracia, Sir," Caulfield answered. "She doesn't like us very much."

"I can deal with that," Bledsoe said, and paused for a moment. "So, miss working for me, Staff Sergeant?"

"Army Intel had better hours, FBI gets shot at a lot less, Sir. You can probably still run circles around my superiors, though." Caulfield smiled. "How's...whatever it is you're doing now? And who's Jonas Bledsoe?"

Bledsoe smirked. "It's challenging, and he's just a man with no free time."

"Sounds familiar, Sir."

"Wouldn't want it any other way," Bledsoe said as the elevator cab came to a stop. The doors opened, and they stepped outside.

* * *

Gracia was sprawled out on her father's bed, arms and legs and hair. She had spent most of her time this morning - since she woke up and found her father missing - pacing through her bedroom in the suite. She had barely managed to shower and put on some clothes, and now she had four large Americans in suits standing over her and putting their feet up on the furniture in the living room. She wore a sweatsuit in soft pastel orange with white trim; the dress for the evening's festivities was on one of the couches in the main room, still wrapped and tagged from whatever drycleaning service had handled it. Gracia didn't know if she would wear it. But then, she didn't know a lot of things at that moment, and that kept her mind racing.

There was a by-now-familiar trio of knocks on the door. Gracia darted up, her hair flowing behind her, and ran for the door. The carpet only barely softened the impact of her shoes, and so she did not hear the person at the door taking a step back - perhaps for safety. Gracia reached the door, steadied herself for a short moment and then opened the door.

Special Agent Caulfield stood at the door with some old man next to her. "Ms. Valdez, may we come in?"

"Do you have any news about my father?" Gracia asked.

The expression on Special Agent Caulfield's face told Gracia that there were no good news. "Please, Ms. Valdez, may we come in?"

"Yes, sure," Gracia said, and opened the door the rest of the way.

Caulfield and the man stepped through the door. She looked to the four agents; they jumped to their feet at her sight. "Clear the room," she ordered, and all four men walked out the door single file and closed the door behind them. "Ms. Valdez, I want you to tell my friend here what you remember about last night, when your father left."

"Who is he, and how will he help you find my father?" Gracia demanded.

"Jonas Bledsoe," Bledsoe offered, together with a slight nod.

"He's here to help us figure out how your father got out last night, Ms. Valdez," Caulfield said.

"What does it matter how my father vanished?" Gracia shouted. "He is out there and in trouble, and you are all in here with me!"

Caulfield had a face suited to protection details - thoroughly and completely unremarkable, with a composed general configuration that only allowed minute changes to how her face looked. It made Caulfield hard to read, which served her well at poker nights, but didn't make interacting with Gracia any easier. "Please, Ms. Valdez, just tell Mr. Bledsoe what happened."

"Agent Caulfield?" Bledsoe said. "I think I'll have this conversation under four eyes, if you don't mind."

"Yes, Sir," Caulfield said, and quickly walked outside the room, clicking the door shut again behind her.

"She called you 'Sir'," Gracia said, "but you're not FBI, are you?"

"I'm here to help," Bledsoe said. "That's all that matters right now. Tell me about last night."

Gracia eyed Bledsoe suspiciously, but then started talking. "I don't - alright. What I know: We were playing cards, to pass the time. He kept looking at his watch. He said he had to meet someone for drinks, so he left at about - maybe 19:25? He called downstairs to one of the agents, who sent up the elevator. He walked over, kissed me good night, and said that he loved me and that he would be back soon. That is all."

"I see," Bledsoe said. He grabbed one of the chairs from the bedroom desk and dragged it over, offering it to Gracia to sit on. "And that didn't strike you as unusual?"

Gracia remained standing. "My father has cocktails with important people all the time, Mr. Bledsoe. Sometimes he stays out late, but he is _always_ back by morning."

Bledsoe nodded. "All right. I don't have any more questions. Thank you, Ms. Valdez."

"That's _it_?" Gracia asked.

"I've learned what I need to know," Bledsoe said. He stood up and walked out of the room, leaving Gracia staring after him.

"Asshole," she whispered to herself.

* * *

"So, what did you find out, Sir?" Caulfield asked. She had the living room cleared as well before Bledsoe came back out.

"Definitely a leak," Bledsoe said. "Valdez called down for the elevator. Whoever sent it up for him was in on it if they didn't log it."

"Damn!" Caulfield said. She sat down on the sofa and folded her hands in front of her face. "I can't search for Valdez if I can't trust my own people."

"I may have a solution for that," Bledsoe said.

"You've got two dozen new agents to replace my guys, Sir?"

"No, but I can send one of my people," Bledsoe said. "She can stay with Gracia at all times and flush out your mole."

"Will she be able to handle working with her?" Caulfield asked. "I don't know if you noticed, but she's a bit of a brat, Sir. And how can I trust this agent?"

"You trust me, I trust her," Bledsoe said. "Straight arrow, doesn't do politics or schemes. You know the type, Sandra."

"Yes, I do, Sir." She smiled. "Will that be a problem for me? Your agent won't do anything that's going to land me in front of an ethics and rules committee, right?"

"Relax, Sandra. She very much believes in doing things the right way," Bledsoe said. "She's got a clearance _and _a conscience. Plus, she's good with kids."

* * *

Tradecraft Commentary: First Aid for GSWs

Unless you're treating a skinned knee or a banged shin, first aid only serves two purposes: stop the injury from getting worse, and keep the injured person alive long enough to reach real medical attention. That means minimizing blood loss, keeping air circulating properly in and out of the body and maintaining a heart beat. For serious traumatic injuries, like a gunshot wound, paramedics and emergency room doctors will work to get the injured person to a hospital or similar medical attention in under what is called the Golden Hour. If patients reach medical attention in an hour or less, their chances of survival go up significantly.

So, what should you look for if you suspect someone's been shot? Usually, the TV stereotypical small round hole is a good indicator, but there are other signs as well, particularly if the victim was shot at close range. Not all the powder in a cartridge or shotgun shell burns when the gun is fired, and powder burns or even embedded pieces of gunpowder can be seen on clothing and in the skin around the wound. For very close range or contact gunshot wounds, tearing of the skin and flesh around the wound is common, as the escaping gasses can cause serious injury. Some times, you can even see the imprint of the muzzle or the front gun sight in the wound.

Powder burns and tearing aside, gunshot wounds behave more or less like any other puncture wound. Your first priority, after assessing that the victim is still breathing and has a good pulse, is to stop the blood loss from the wound, usually through elevating the wound above the heart if possible and applying pressure with a bandage. Specialized powdered clotting agents exist which can be poured on the wound to create an almost instant clot, and while these used to only be found in military hospitals and hospital trauma centers, they can now be purchased with any decent first aid kit. Wound dressings and gauze that include such agents are also available and are somewhat easier to apply. Once blood loss is stopped or at least reduced, the victim must be taken to more advanced medical care as soon as possible. Tourniquets should never be used for a gunshot wound. The additional risk and injuries that a tourniquet causes, even if applied properly, far outweigh the ability to stop the bleeding, especially since direct pressure and clotting agents are almost as effective.

One specific injury that you have to worry about with a gunshot wound is a collapsed lung or a pneumothorax. In a pneumothorax, when the victim inhales, air is pulled into the chest cavity instead of into the lungs, either from the outside through the skin and ribs, or from the inside, through a hole in the lungs. This air prevents the lung from inflating and makes it much harder or impossible for the victim to breathe. The most effective way to treat a pneumothorax in the field is through a needle thoracocentesis, or simply inserting a large-gauge needle into the chest cavity but not into the lungs. This relieves the internal pressure and allows the lung to inflate, or at least reduces the condition long enough to reach medical treatment. Any large gauge needle will work for this procedure, although there are specific needles that are designed to be used for this procedure.

Gunshot wounds can cause a wide range of injuries. A gunshot wound to the head can have the bullet slide around the outside of the skull and out the other side, leaving only two small puncture wounds, and a wound to the arm or leg might pull a bullet into a vein and from there into the lungs, causing a bullet embolism and death within minutes. Unless you're a paramedic or a emergency room doctor in a proper medical facility, your only concern when it comes to treating gunshot wounds should be stopping the bleeding, making sure they keep breathing and their heart keeps beating, and getting them to a hospital as soon as possible. Once proper medical attention is given, unless specific injuries occur, like a pneumothroax or any other conditions requiring specific treatment, the treatment of a gunshot wound is like any other traumatic puncture wound. Keeping the victim alive and supported long enough for the wound to heal is the name of the game. Usually, the bullet or bullet fragments are left in place, as the surgery required to dig them out is more risky than simply leaving them. However, bullets and fragments left in the body can wander, which may cause complications and require their removal even years after the original injury.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello, readers! Sorry for the long production time for this, I'll spare you the excuses. Thanks to everyone who reads, special thanks to everyone who reviews or writes me. As usual, props to my co-author Kasey Kagawa. You folks better be grateful for him, too. :) Today's commentary concerns concealed carry of firearms. I would like to do some character commentary, but we have so many plot bunnies running around that I couldn't find someone to write about in detail without spoiling stuff we want to reveal later. Maybe I'll just do a checklist next chapter so you folks at home can keep score with us. Anyway - enjoy!

* * *

Sunlight coming through the drapes. Pizza boxes and scores of Mountain Dew cans on the table. A six-wheeled robot straddling the carpet with softly whirring electric motors. The couch still shoved aside, though with the mess it left behind cleaned up. The TV on standby instead of being firmly off.

That's how Jaime Sommers found her living room after a good night's sleep.

Immediately, her heart rate picked up, her eyes sharpened, and she knew she had some work ahead of her. But before she could even cross the threshold out of her bed room, she had to do something for her modesty. She turned on her heels and snuck back through the room, careful not to wake Will. Will, to be fair, didn't seem to require all that much care: he was sprawled out on his belly, head turned sideways on the pillow, with a whole bunch of blanket drawn toward him. She hadn't noticed him climb in late at night, although looking at how he was positioned, she wondered how he could have possibly made it stealthy enough not to wake her. One of those imponderable Will skills, she thought.

Jaime didn't own a nightshirt, though she did have a few oversized t-shirts from a second-hand store that served similar purposes; she grabbed one out of her closet at random and slipped it over her head. Thus covered, she walked back to the door and through it, then closed the door behind her as softly as she could manage. She walked into the kitchen, grabbed the trash bin and headed back to the table to dismantle Fort Fastfood. In doing so, she walked close enough to the robot to have it abandon its interaction with the carpet; it immediately whirred into action, reversing off the carpet, turning to face Jaime and then approaching her. Jaime looked down at the robot as it approached; the robot switched on its internal speaker and redundantly pleaded with her - in Becca's voice - to look at it. After a repetition or two of this message, the robot backed up and worked its suspension, rocking from side to side in a crude little dance. Becca's voice came from the speaker again.

"Hey, Jaime," the robot said, "if you're hearing this, the robot has recognized your face. Which means we rock. Will and me."

"If I'm standing there," Will's voice said, echoing from the same speaker, "you can give me a kiss."

"A short one," Becca's voice admonished. "No tongue."

"Rebecca!" Will's voice whispered. "That is not appropriate -"

"I'll be watching!" Becca's voice said. "So, er, sorry about the mess. We'll totally clean it up tomorrow, for sure. If **I****'****m** standing there, remind me I said that."

Jaime smiled at the robot, but there was no accounting for that; its message delivered, the robot lowered its camera, turned around and headed for the next empty corner like a scolded dog. Jaime began picking up the cans, shaking each briefly to make sure they were actually empty. Next came the pizzas: Jaime went back into the kitchen to grab plates and clingwrap, then gathered the remaining slices and covered them up to put them in the fridge. The boxes themselves were too big for the trashcan and too grease-stained to save them for recycling. Jaime carried them back to the kitchen counter and stacked them up there, to be taken away with the garbage next time.

A beep in her right ear interrupted her thoughts. _Good__ morning__, __Jaime__._ Truewell's voice was pleasant, considering how early the hour was. _How __are __you__?_

"Hello, Ruth," Jaime said. "I'm cleaning up right now. I'll be ready in an hour or so, okay?"

_This __isn__'__t __about __today__'__s __session__._ There was a pause on the line. _Mr__. __Bledsoe __has __a __request__ for __you__._

"Tell him I said 'va-ca-tiiiiiion!', Ruth," Jaime said. "**If** you can do the voice. If you can't, uh - I think he'll still get it."

_I __know__, __and__ he __knows __it__, __too__. __I __think__._ Jaime chuckled at that. _We__'__re __hoping __this __one__'__s __going __to __be __low__-__key__; __a __friend __of __his __needs __someone__ to __look __out __for __a__ protectee __for __a __day__, __that__'__s __all__. __I__'__m __sorry __to __interrupt __your __vacation__, __but__..._

"But it is a mission," Jaime said. "What does he need me for, anyway? Just put the guy in a hotel room and post Ginsburg's guys outside. Problem solved."

_I__ wouldn__'__t __have __called __you __myself__, __but __Bledsoe__'__s __concerned__ that __soldiers __in __full __battle __gear __attract__ a __lot __of __attention__. __You __don__'__t__, __Jaime__. __Plus__, __she__'__s __not __a __typical __protectee__. __She__'__s__ a__ teenage__ girl__, __Jaime__. __Her __father__'__s__ a __diplomat__, __and__ he__'__s __gone __missing__, __and __we __think __they__'__ll__ come __after __her __next__. __Her __escort__ has __been __compromised__, __and __they __need__ someone__ they __can__ trust __to__ watch __out __for __her__. __That__'__s __why __Bledsoe __and __his __friend __want __you__, __Jaime__._

Jaime bit her lip. "Thank you for the briefing, then, Ruth. I have one question, though."

_Yes__?_

"Do you think I should go?" Jaime asked.

_I __really __do__, __Jaime__. __I__'__ve __got __her __file __right __in __front __of __me__, __and__ - __she__'__s __just __a__ teenage__ girl__. __She__'__s__ caught __up __in __something__ dangerous__, __and__ someone__ out __there __might__ want __her __dead__, __or __worse__. __She __needs __your __help__._

"Alright." Jaime set the garbage bag down on the floor and sighed. "Fine. Give me five minutes to get dressed."

_I__ know__ you __don__'__t l__ike __this__, __Jaime__. __But __I __did __convince__ Bledsoe __that __she__'__ll __be __fine __while __you __wake __Rebecca __and __Will __up __and __eat __breakfast__ with __them__. __So__, __we__'__ll __send__ the __van __for __you __in __an __hour __and __a __half__. __I__'__m__ sorry__, __Jaime__, __if __this __wasn__'__t __so __important__..._

Jaime looked curiously at the floor. "Ruth, I'm - thank you, but if she needs to be safe, and I'm the only one -" Jaime sighed again. "Just...are you sure?"

_She__'__s__ surrounded__ by __half __of __the __San __Francisco__ field __office__. __If __they__'__re __all __dirty__, __then __there__'__s __not __much __**anyone**__ can __do__._

"I still don't know what **I** can do, but I'll do my best," Jaime said. "Wait, 'field office'? Who is this friend of Bledsoe's, anyway?"

_FBI __Special __Agent __Sandra __Caulfield__._

"Great. The FBI. I left a corpse at their office last week, Ruth. I don't think they'll like seeing me."

_You__'__ll __be __dealing__ directly __with __Agent__ Caulfield__, __so __don__'__t __worry__ about __that__. __I__'__ll __call __when__ we__'__re __ready __to __pick__ you__ up__. __Just __enjoy__ your __morning__, __Jaime__. __I__'__ve __cleared __you__ plenty __of __time__. __You__'__ll __just __have __to __take __her __shopping__ for __a __day __and __stand __near __her __at__ a __fancy __dinner__, __and __then __go __home__. __We__'__ve __got __you __a __very __nice __dress__. __Maybe __it__'__ll __still __be __fun__, __after __all__._

Jaime pictured Ruth's smile, attempting to put a good spin on a bad situation. "Thank you, Ruth," Jaime said. "I'll talk to you later."

* * *

In her office at Wolf Creek, Truewell closed the link to Jaime's hardware. The FBI files on Graiza and Diego Valdez are open in front of her, as well as Agent Caulfield. The upper left corner of her screen was still taken up by her videoconference with Bledsoe, who had been listening in the whole time.

"Nice handler work, Truewell," Bledsoe said. "By the end, you had her grateful for the breakfast when you just took away her whole day. Good job, as always."

He disconnected on the spot, and so he had no chance to see her rip off her headset and lean back in her chair. "Dammit," she said, and ran her fingers through her hair. Her head ached in a particular place, an ache she quite easily recognized. She took off her jacket and tapped a control on the Berkut-designed transdermal patch on her upper arm, shutting off the nicotine flow. A quick rummage through her desk turned up an old, half-used pack of cigarettes and a lighter, and Truewell walked out of her office, barely waiting to clear the door before lighting up.

* * *

The first thing Jaime did with the bad news was try to wash them off. Not with a relaxing bath - she felt that it would take too much time, and she wasn't looking to relax. A quick shower served her goals. Blow-dry hair. Get dressed, at least to the underwear stage. Time's a-wasting. Jaime finished the bathroom tango in 10 minutes 42 seconds - not quite a personal best, but up there in the "Go go go!"-lympics. Further time savings were realized when Jaime stomped right past a drowsy-looking Becca on the way to the kitchen. Becca's brain skipped a processing cycle; after a few seconds, she turned around and followed Jaime into the kitchen. Her big sister was crouched in front of the fridge, digging out some breakfast essentials.

"Good morning," Becca said softly. Jaime's head snapped to the side; she, too, needed a moment for her thoughts to catch up, but then closed the fridge door swiftly and moved in to hug Becca. "Whoa, personal space!" Becca protested weakly.

Jaime broke the hug and took a step back. "Good morning, Becca!" she said, signed and smiled. "You're up early, what's the occasion?"

"Oh, you know, your hairdryer woke me up," Becca joked.

Jaime popped a small grin. "I thought I brushed it out this time," she said, running a few fingers through her hair.

"Nuh-uh," Becca insisted. "Still brings the frizzy. You can't fool **my** eyes."

"If only you used your powers for good," Jaime said, chuckling a bit to herself. "Like cleaning up after yourself."

"I'll totally get right on that," Becca said, her eyes wandering toward the fridge. "...right after breakfast."

"Uh huh. Well, what do you want for breakfast, then?" Jaime asked.

"I thought I saw some bacon hiding in the fridge."

"Hiding is right," Jaime replied, leaning against the coldbox, "you almost got the whole package already. And you ordered pizza last night."

"_We_ ordered pizza last night," Becca said. "Roboticising burns mad calories. Just ask Dr. Anthros, if he ever wakes up."

"You still call him that, huh," Jaime said, recalling Becca's little 'slip of the tongue' in the robot's recording. She probably didn't even remember it now.

"Yeah, I guess he's okay," Becca acknowledged, "on a good day, if you do something he's interested in...he's okay. I guess."

Jaime grinned. "Somebody's coming around!" she said, drawing out the 'around' long enough to drive Becca into a deep wince. "What? You are."

"Fine," Becca said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Yes, you are right, big sis, your boyfriend is not horrible. Breakfast now?"

Jaime stepped aside from the fridge. "I need to wake him up first," she said. "You go ahead and get started, okay?"

"Sure," Becca replied.

"Love you," Jaime signed and left the kitchen with an eye towards rousing Will from his sleep.

* * *

Even when it came to sleep, there was a certain...propriety to William Anthros's actions. He did not sleep naked or in his underwear; instead, he wore a set of silk pajamas, one of several he kept exclusively for this purpose, and no matter how beat an evening (or early morning) found him, changing into pajamas for sleeping was a core part of his bed ritual. It might have counted for him in the 'gentleman' column, if he wasn't - unfortunately - such a blanket hog.

The image of her beloved Will on the right side of her narrow bed, still mostly asleep and with most of the blanket drawn up around him, made Jaime smile almost compulsively. His head was rested on two stacked pillows, and outside of his chest moving slightly underneath the blanket, there was little activity to make out. Jaime walked softly to his side of the bed, bowed down and gave him a kiss on the cheek, lingering long enough to feel his facial muscles move towards a smile.

"Good morning, Jaime," he said, not opening his eyes or moving from his position at all, for that matter.

"When were **you** planning to get up?" Jaime asked.

"I don't know," Will admitted. "Later."

"How about now, Will?"

"Let me check," Will said and then opened his eyes. "Hmmmm - no, I don't think so."

"I could just lift you out of bed, you know," Jaime said with a smile. "It'd be worth risking the controls for a few seconds."

"Your offer is tempting," Will said, already conceding defeat with his eyes. "I think I'll get myself to the shower, though." He looked at Jaime. "But maybe a kiss for motivation..."

She leaned over, hands behind her back and pecked Will on the cheek, then again on the lips. "There," she said, then stood back up and put her hands on her hips. "Now get up, you smell like oil and I need to change the sheets."

"I really enjoyed spending time with your sister last night," Will said. After a moment, he added "Working on her robot."

Jaime pretended to be taken aback. "Why, Dr. Anthros! I thought that was something special between my sister and me! How dare you!" She pointed towards the bathroom. "Go shower, and I shall have breakfast ready for you as punishment when you're dressed."

"A harsh punishment," he said, grinning. "But for the sake of our love..." Will groaned as he rolled to his feet.

She grabbed Will as he made his way out of her bedroom. He felt his heartrate spike, but then she kissed him again. "Thanks for spending time with Becca last night. She really enjoyed it."

"We worked well together," Will said. "Two eggs over easy for me, please."

"Will..."

"Yes?" Will asked, halfway to the door already.

"I want to know what you think about Becca, about spending time with her," Jaime said. "Not how well you two collaborate. She's finally starting to warm up to you. I just want to know how you feel about her."

"I like her well enough," Will said, the grin slowly disappearing from his face. "Of course, one evening robot bash doesn't exactly make us the fastest of friends. But I do think there's a direction here, to a good -"

"I'll just take that as a yes," Jaime said. She smiled and nodded towards the bathroom. "Now, go shower. Your eggs should be done when you get out."

"You should hurry with that," Will said, his grin returning. "I shower quickly."

"That's not all you're quick with," Jaime cracked.

"Jaime!"

"Go, go," Jaime said, stifling a laugh.

* * *

Jaime was close enough behind Will to see him wave a greeting to Becca when he crossed the distance from her bedroom to the bathroom; she returned a perplexed wave just as he disappeared through the door. Jaime gave her sister a quick smile and walked toward her, moving to set the table to the light sizzling sounds of bacon frying in the pan.

"How done is it?" Jaime asked, checking the pan before Becca got to formulate a reply.

Becca raised a piece of bacon from the plate in front of her and started nibbling on it, a mischievous smile on her face. "This one's chewy."

"Manners," Jaime scolded.

Becca grabbed her plate and set it down on the counter, fried eggs and bacon already on it. She leaned forward on the counter and watched Jaime buzzing about the table "So! Dr. Anthros' skinny butt is in the shower, breakfast is cooking, what's the plan for today? More testing? Or, I was thinking, maybe we can get out of the house, go downtown and get something to eat at that Japanese mall in Little Tokyo, maybe stop by the library for a bit?"

Jaime bit her lip.

"Oh, no." Becca put her fork down on the counter. "You're kidding me. This is your vacation! We're supposed to be spending time away from your creepy new boss!"

"He's got an emergency business meeting today," Jaime invented, "and he absolutely begged me to come, and he's paying like quadruple overtime and a bonus, and it's only for -"

"No!" Becca says. "You tell him no, that's what you do. You let him walk all over you like this, who knows what he'll be demanding next."

"Becca, I'm sorry," Jaime said. "The vacation isn't cancelled. We can do all that tomorrow."

"But Bledsoe is making you leave for today." Becca looked away for a second, then back to her sister. "Just tell me that...that this really is important, this...meeting thing, that you'll be safe and that you'll be back tomorrow. I want you to _promise_ me that."

Jaime walked over to Becca and bowed down a little, bringing their faces to the same level. "I **will** be back tomorrow. I promise." _You__better__not__make__me__a__liar__, __Bledsoe__, _Jaime thought.

Becca managed a small smile. "Okay." She hugged Jaime. "I've got your back, okay, big sis?"

"I know," Jaime said, patting Becca on the back. Becca held onto the hug until Jaime repeated the gesture, then Jaime left her hands on Becca's shoulders. "I'll be back. No worries, okay?"

"I...sure thing, Jaime," Becca said. She turned back to her breakfast and looked over to Jaime with a fork full of egg in her hand. "So, while you're away..." Becca's classic smile finally reappeared on her face, letting Jaime feel instantly better. "Is it okay if I go out?"

The bathroom door clicked open, and Will walked out, rubbing a small towel through his damp hair. Jaime couldn't help but notice that he was wearing a fresh pair of pajamas, this one black with a subtle floral pattern on the chest.

"Breakfast smells great!" he said, walking over to Jaime and Becca. "Good morning, Rebecca."

"Good morning, Doctor William Anthros," Becca said in a somewhat mocking tone of voice.

Will ignored her dig with a polite little smile and turned his attention to Jaime, who was still in the middle of thinking of a response to Becca's question. "What's the occasion?" he asked. "Should I be dressing for a funeral?"

"I need to come in for work today," Jaime said.

"Oh, really?" Will said. "Well, that is a bummer. Do we have time for breakfast?" He turned to Becca again. "The bacon smells absolutely delicious."

"There's some more over here," Becca said, waving at the counter. "I'm probably going to head on over to the library today, do some research."

"For a paper?" Jaime asked. "Or for the robot?"

"School year's over, Jaime," Becca said. "Just need to look some stuff up there. Gonna have to go to the Berkeley library, so I'll be on the BART."

"Berkeley?" Jaime asked. "That's pretty far." She looked over at Will and smiled. "What if Will came with you?"

"Uh..." Becca said.

"Of course!" Will said. "I have to catch up on some reading myself. I'd gladly come with you, Rebecca."

Becca cringed again at the sound of her full name. "You know, maybe we'll just...I don't know, hang around here. There's plenty of projects I could work on at the apartment. We have to clean up the living room and stuff, anyway." She turned her attention back to her plate.

"There is that," Will conceded, and turned to Jaime. "I'm sorry for the mess, Jaime. We **will** take care of it, won't we?"

Becca looked back up to the conversation, mouth full of egg, and saw Jaime and Will looking at her. "Hm?"

Will looked to her, his face shifting toward a sterner look. "We're both going to clean up the living room after breakfast, Rebecca. Yes?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," she mumbled through her half-chewed breakfast, hastily signing the phrase as well. She threw in the sign for _jerk_ at the end.

"Becca!" Jaime hissed.

Becca shrugged and went back to eating, keeping her eyes on the conversation this time.

"Anyway," Jaime said, "you two play nice on your day off from my nagging, okay? I promise I'll be home as soon as the meeting's done." She focused directly on Becca. "Okay?"

Becca raised her hands. "Okay, okay." She scraped the last bits of egg off her plate, then walked towards the hallway. "Jaime, can I talk to you? In my room?"

"Um, sure," Jaime said. "You finish your plate, Will, I'll help with the dishes when I'm back, okay?"

"Of course," Will said.

* * *

Becca's room was charmingly adorned with everything that hadn't found a place in the living room's main mess; Jaime's nosed twitched reflexively, but she said nothing when she closed the door behind her. Becca caught her glance and threw a quick "I'll clean it up later" at her.

"**What** is his problem?" Becca asked. "Last night, he was all into working together and stuff, he was cool, well, as cool as he can be, and today, he's a complete douche."

"He's not a 'douche'," Jaime said. "He was just...raised differently."

"What, by a family of emotionally distant wolves?" Becca glanced at the door. "How am I supposed to spend a whole day with him?"

"Look, Becca, he's trying to extend the olive branch here, alright?" Jaime said.

Becca scoffed. "It must be a very small one."

"That's enough smartass out of you," Jaime said. "What do you want? He helped you with your robot, he offered to take you to the library; he's trying very hard and you're throwing it all in his face."

Becca gave Jaime a skeptical look. "**This** is him trying?"

"Yes, this is him trying," Jaime said. "I know that he's a bit...clueless sometimes, and he's not used to spending time with you. He doesn't know how to deal with teenagers, let alone a brilliant and deaf teenage girl. He really did enjoy working with you last night, he just has a problem showing how he feels."

"No kidding," Becca said. Jaime started to respond, but Becca shook her head. "I know, I know. I can be a bit...tough to be around sometimes. And I forget that people don't know how to talk to me, but I'm gonna blame that on you being so awesome at it."

Jaime smirked.

"But yeah, okay," Becca continued. "I'll give him another shot." She grinned. "Maybe he's less of a jerk after he's eaten something."

Jaime returned the smile. "Usually, yeah. But Becca, please, just try talking to him," Jaime said. "He's worth it. Really."

"Okay, big sis." Becca looked around the room. "So, I'd like to take a shower, get dressed, so maybe you could, you know..."

"Distract Will?" Jaime asked.

"I was gonna go with leave, but if you could do that, too, that would be super-awesome," Becca said and flashed Jaime a cheesy smile.

"I'll be daring and try both," Jaime said. "Oh, and wash your hair, okay? You've got grease -"

Becca ran her fingers through her hair. "Oh, yeah, gross. Okay, bye, big sis."

"Bye, little sis," Jaime said while backing out of the room, and closed the door behind her.

* * *

Sara Corvus' perception went from inverted to normal and back again as she completed another repetition. Her room in the safe house was a textbook example of utilitarian furniture: a steel chair at her desk, a cot, and a large self-made exercise frame; a combination dead-lift bench, captain's chair and pull-up rack, welded together from square tube steel. Her bionic replacements made most exercises pointless; most of her core was still intact, however, and that's what she focused on keeping in shape.

For the moment, she had her legs looped over the top of the pull-up bar; she was on her third set of vertical sit-ups when somebody knocked on her bedroom door.

"Come in!" she said between repetitions. Nicholas opened the door wide and ducked into the room. "What's up?"

"A call from your friend, Sara," Nicholas said, holding up the burner phone. Sara nodded, finished the repetition and then began her dismount. She grabbed the arm supports beneath her, raised herself into a handstand and straightened her legs, touching the ceiling with her feet; after a moment, she slowly flipped forward and got her feet onto solid ground. One hand reached for a towel, the other grabbed the phone from Nicholas.

"Hey," she said. "What's up?"

"I have good news for you," the scrambled voice said. "There's a Berkut op today that involves Sommers. That should make your plan a little easier to pull off."

"An op?" Corvus asked. "Anything I should know about?"

"Don't worry, I've got it. I'll call if something turns up that you can use. When do you leave?"

"A half-hour, I need to make sure the ground is clear before I make my move."

"Be careful. You're taking a big risk on this."

"It'll be worth it, trust me."

"I do. Good luck, Sara."

* * *

Having said her goodbyes and left Becca in the care of William Anthros, Jaime left her apartment and took up position in the driveway, pacing back and forth and looking at her watch. Although her wardrobe selection didn't emphasize business meetings, she'd been able to put something like a power suit together; it looked decent enough on her with her Berkut bag slung over her right shoulder. The nondescript black towncar pulling up at the curb didn't leave her with much time to reflect on the day ahead. A door in the back popped open for her; Jaime climbed in and took a seat in the back next to the only other person back there, Antoine Ginsburg. The rest of the space was crammed with hardshell cases.

Ginsburg shook her hand enthusiastically. "Great to see you, Sommers!" he said. "How are you doing?"

"Better if I was back at home with my sister and Will," Jaime said, and lightly returned the handshake. She tossed her bag in the middle of the limo's floor. "You know, on my vacation. Why are you so cheerful?"

"Hey, they didn't tell me," Ginsburg replied, a little more somber at that. "They just told me to prepare the gear and pick you up, and I was thinking, 'hey, it'll be nice to see how Sommers is doing, it'd be nice to see her'. Sage says hi, too."

Jaime cracked a slight smile. "Thanks, Ginsburg. I'm sorry, that was mean." She stretched in the limo's long back seat. "As you can see, I'm fine, all healed up and walking around without those damn brain controls. How are you and the rest of the boys doing?"

"That malfunction gave us a hell of a scare," Ginsburg said, "so that's good news. Well, Sage, he's still in medical. The leg isn't healing up as quickly as the doctors want, though. Jordan's been down in the labs, trying to help the newbies with figuring the device out. And Calavera - eh, same old, same old. Never been a social guy, anyway. I think he's got a guard rotation today." Ginsburg looked around. "How much longer is that vacation of yours, anyway? I thought we'd get to train you a little before sending you out on another mission."

"I think that this one's supposed to involve less gunfire," Jaime said. "Truewell says that this might be just a babysitting job, some important person's in deep shit and they think they have a spy inside his daughter's protection detail, and they want me there to...I don't know, look menacing."

"And I'm here to help with that," Ginsburg said, patting one of the cases. "You know, usually Mr. Kim handles this, but given the circumstances..."

"Circumstances?'

"He prefers to do the draw and retention drills before he hands out holsters," Ginsburg said. "But given that you'll have to carry concealed for this, I guess you -"

Jaime shook her head. "Oh, no. No, this day is bad enough as it is, don't give me a gun, too."

"I can't send you in without issuing a holster and making sure you're carrying," Ginsburg said. He flipped open a hard case to reveal a subcompact pistol. Jaime waited a second before she realized that there was no more voice to tell her what the weapon's name was. Ginsburg performed a quick safety check, slid the pistol into the holster and put it back in the hard case. "I'm sorry, but that's the rule."

She glared at the gun. "Would you take it?"

"Me? Shit, I'm the kind of guy who's strapped when he goes to buy corn flakes, but..." Ginsburg looked at the gun, then back at Jaime. "I would. You never know what's going to happen on a mission. Better to have it and not need it, right?"

Jaime looked back towards the front of the limo. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Besides, and this is the part I think you might actually like, it goes with the rest of your Berkut-issued cover," Ginsburg says, and hands her a file folder. "You're Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent Jaime Baker. The DSS provides protection for visiting dignitaries. You've previously worked counterintelligence and security at the Pentagon for five years."

"I've never even been to D.C.!" Jaime protested. "How the Hell am I going to play a Special Agent like that?"

"We will be in your ear the entire time,"Bledsoe's voice said. Jaime heard it in her head just a moment before the sound issued from the speakers in the back of the towncar.

"Oh, hello, **Jonas**," Jaime said. Ginsburg's eyes widened briefly. "So, what am I really doing here today?"

"Exactly what you were briefed on," Bledsoe said. "Your primary task is to protect Gracia Valdez and keep her company. There is at least one mole in her protection detail that we know of, and you're going in there to flush him out."

"This keeps getting better," Jaime moaned. "How the Hell am I supposed to do that?"

"Just be yourself, Sommers," Bledsoe said. "Your presence here alone will disrupt whatever plans the mole has, and if you ask enough questions about what's going on and talk to Miss Valdez, if nothing else you'll spook the mole into making a mistake."

"And you might find the traitor yourself," Ginsburg added.

"Yes, that is also a possibility," Bledsoe said. "Simply ask around her protection detail. Gain Miss Valdez's trust, and stay alert for any threats against her life or against her protection detail. Something is happening with her father, and she might be in danger. Your job is to make sure that she stays safe, something I think even you will agree is a good deed."

"One small good deed, Jonas," Jaime said. "So, Ruth told me about this FBI agent I'm supposed to meet?"

There was a pause while Jaime and Ginsburg both pictured Bledsoe grinding his teeth. "Yes, your contact on the detail is Special Agent Caulfield. She can be trusted implicitly, and will assist you. Talk to her first." Another pause - maybe a deep breath? "Truewell and Ginsburg will handle all further questions. Good luck, Sommers." Bledsoe's connection cut off with a click.

"O-kay," Ginsburg said. "That sounded pretty straightforward, huh?"

Jaime looked back to the gun case and fidgeted in her seat belt. "Oh, yeah, pretend to be a secret agent from the military and go hunt a spy while I'm surrounded by FBI agents, perfectly straightforward."

"Hey, I'm just a radio call away," he said. "You're not alone out there."

Another click announced a new voice over the radio. "And I'll be in your ear the entire time, Jaime," Truewell said. "Ginsburg, I think it's time we showed her the rest of the disguise we arranged for her."

"Oh, yeah," Ginsburg said and slid a hard case over in front of Jaime. "You can't go in with **that** suit. One, it's too tight for a shoulder holster, and two, mis-matched navy and black doesn't say DSS." Jaime frowned a little bit and looked down at her suit, but Ginsburg smiled at her and shrugged. "Hey, I think it looks professional enough, but Washington types tend to get their stuff tailored." He popped the hard case open to reveal a neatly pressed black suit with faint pinstripes. "Now, I only had an hour to shop, so this isn't completely custom, but it's the next best thing. This is **exactly** your size. Cut a little wider under the shoulders for the holster, but I think you won't look like a gorilla."

"You'll look the part," Truewell said. "FBI agents tend to dress a bit more cheaply, but DSS agents deal with dignitaries, so they go for the nicer suits." After a moment, she added, "I have three just like it."

Jaime's surprise with being presented the suit was quickly matched by her surprise at who picked it out. "_You_ picked this?"

"Hey, I'm a military lifer and the pay keeps piling up," Ginsburg said with a shrug. "I like looking good."

"And I think the bionics make me look like enough of a gorilla as it is," Jaime said, holding the suit jacket up to her chest.

"I think you look great," Ginsburg replied, then realized what he had just said. "Ah, I mean, you look like you did before the bionics. Which was pretty good."

Jaime smiled while Ginsburg said nothing; Truewell continued the briefing. "Now, a suit is not appropriate for the reception in the evening, so you'll be changing outfits. Ginsburg?" He opened yet another hardcase, pushing the amount of clutter in the back of the car dangerously high. This one contained a folded up cocktail dress in soft apricot, matching high-heeled shoes, a leather handbag and - upon further inspection - underwear best described as 'flattering'.

"Wait, what is all this for?" Jaime said, her eyes wide at the blatantly expensive designer evening wear in front of her, ironically stored in a military hard case.

"You'll be attending a consulate function tonight with Miss Valdez as a part of her protection detail. It's very high-class event, a wine-and-dine evening for Spain's business partners on the West Coast, and we had to make sure that you could dress for the part," Truewell said.

Jaime held up the undergarments and raised a suspicious eyebrow at Ginsburg. "Is all of this...government issue?"

Ginsburg blushed and looked away. "There's full measurements for you on file. From your surgery. And I didn't know what you'd have on you in the, ahem, underwear category. I - _we_ thought we should be prepared. I don't **really** know women's clothing, so I called Truewell for help."

"Ginsburg and I think that this outfit will let you blend in, but won't get in your way if things go bad," Truewell said. "The purse is large enough to conceal the handgun, and the dress is cut high enough that you should have almost the full range of motion in your legs. As for the underwear, despite your love of sports bras, they don't exactly go well with formal evening wear. I helped Ginsburg pick out undergarments that complemented the dress."

"Yeah, that was my **favorite** part," Ginsburg said. "Because just going into the shop wasn't awkward enough."

Jaime smiled. "Well, thank you, Ginsburg." She put the underwear back in the evening wear case and snapped it shut. "It doesn't make up for being dragged out of my apartment and away from my sister and boyfriend on my vacation, but it's a very nice gesture, taking the bullet like that for me."

"Next time, let me take a real bullet instead," he cracked. "But I have to say, charging four grand on a company credit card feels pretty good."

Jaime's smile widened. "Yes, it does."

* * *

_Cakewalk__, _Antonio Pope thought to himself as he walked the halls of the Fairmont Hotel. The government ID he'd picked out of his car's glove box - pretty much at random - had gotten him past the FBI's security cordon, even with a helpful pointer towards Special Agent Caulfield's room. He passed another of the agents on his way to the elevators, earning a nod from him. _An __elephant__ could__'__ve__ walked__ out __of __here__. __Or__ in__._

He entered the elevator and straightened his clothes. He wore a pair of black pants, cut conservatively but sporting a variety of empty pockets, and a black polo shirt without a logo to match. With a tactical vest, he could've passed for a civilian contractor in Kandahar; right then, he wore a windbreaker and looked 'government' enough to pass muster.

The elevator stopped; Pope took a moment to look into one of the interior mirrors and zero his expression. WIth his preparations complete, he entered Caulfield's room. Sandra Caulfield herself stood in the middle of the room, hands on her hips; her head turned to look at him, and her face turned sour in an instant. Pope ignored her and looked to the couch, where Bledsoe was enjoying a cup of tea with a slight smile.

"What is **he** doing here?" Caulfield asked. "I'm not letting him anywhere near Gracia Valdez, Sir."

"He's not here for that, Sandra," Bledsoe said. "I brought him in to vet your detail."

"I'd prefer to have someone from the FBI do that, Sir," Caulfield said. She still refused to look in Pope's direction. "Not him."

"We could wait a week for an OPR report," Pope said. "But I'm given to understand we don't have a week."

"He'll need your access credentials," Bledsoe said, "for cross-checking with our files. And I'll hold down the fort here while you go hunt your missing attaché, Sandra."

Caulfield shot a hostile glance at Pope, who by now was inspecting the security of the sitting room, then looked back at Bledsoe. "Sir, can we talk? Privately?"

Pope smiled. "I'll be outside," he said, and made directly for the door. Just a second after it snapped close, Bledsoe looked to Caulfield.

"I know you never liked him, Sandra," Bledsoe said.

"He's a ghoul, Sir. A completely amoral bastard. I remember what he did to get information back in Army Intelligence, and it still turns my stomach," Caulfield said. "The only thing that kept him out of Leavenworth was you."

"And you, Sandra. I owe you for keeping quiet after you transferred out. But he is still working for me, and we need your access," Bledsoe said. "He needs access. And we don't have time for paperwork." He stood up and walked up to Caulfield. "We're here to help, Sandra. Let us."

"I was willing to put my career on the line for you, Sir, but not for Pope," Caulfield said. "He gets caught, they'll do a lot more than just fire me."

"You know I can clean all of that up when we're done here, Sandra," Bledsoe said. "I call the right phone in Washington and you're untouchable. I have plenty of leverage. But what I don't have - what we don't have - is time. We all want this situation resolved. Don't get in the way of your friends, Sandra."

Caulfield rubbed her eyes in thought and looked over at the door. "Fine." She looked back to Bledsoe and her expression hardened. "But I need to know that I'm in charge here. This is my case, and he is working under **me**. If I say stop, he stops. Clear?"

"Of course," Bledsoe said, smiling a little. "Like I said, we're here to help, Sandra."

"All right." Caulfield pulled a notebook out of her jacket and scribbled her access information on a page, tore it off and handed it to Bledsoe. "This password is good for the rest of the week."

Bledsoe took the page and nodded to her; she lingered for a moment, then left the room, hurrying to the makeshift command center in the living room to lead the manhunt for Diego Valdez. Pope reentered the room wordlessly, finding Bledsoe still standing near the door. Bledsoe handed him the piece of paper. "Finlayson and Brown," he said. "Files, communications, access logs, anything else you can think of."

Pope smiled slightly. "Copy that, Sir."

* * *

Ten minutes later, the towncar pulled up to the back of the Fairmont Hotel, joining the crowd of other black government-issue vehicles. In the rear, Jaime adjusted her hair one more time, looked to Ginsburg and got a smile and a thumbs-up for her trouble. She took a deep breath.

"I'm ready," she said.

"Yeah, you are," Ginsburg said. "Remember, anything goes wrong, we'll come for you."

"You're not coming in with me?" Jaime asked.

"No," he said, grinning, "I have to patrol the streets nearby from the backseat of this limo."

"And examine the wet bar, too?"

"About all this dumb grunt is qualified for," he said. "You'll do fine, Sommers. Good luck." Ginsburg tossed a reassuring nod in as well.

Jamie smiled. "Thank you, Ginsburg," she said. Her hand went to the door release, a deep breath was pulled in and released, then she opened the door and climbed out.

Jaime did her best serious face as the limo rode off behind her; her eyes swept the front of the hotel, noting the FBI agents scattered around strategic locations. She could tell that several pairs of eyes were on her, even through their sunglasses. _I__ can__'__t__ believe __they __actually __look__ like __Feds_, she thought. Her parents had told her of the few times they encountered FBI agents on protests, and until that moment, Jaime never believed that they all looked like that, but there they were. Simply being this near to all these FBI agents with the clear intent of lying to them was enough to make Jaime's heart race.

One agent stepped up to her to block her path, sending an adrenaline spike through Jaime. After the momentary confusion cleared, her hand fished her fake badge out of her pocket.

"I'm Special Agent Jaime Baker, I'm with the Diplomatic Security Service -" she started, but after seeing her badge and hearing the magic words "special agent", he stood aside. The quick success raised her confidence, and the next line was calmer, more routine - bored. "I'm here to see Agent Caulfield?" A brief radio call upstairs elicited a positive response after a minute or so, which Jaime spent worrying about how Becca would support herself if she went to prison for impersonating a federal agent. Once she was cleared, though, the elevator quickly dinged open and she walked through the doors and up to the suite.

Once upstairs, a few members of the crowd of agents working in the living room command center glanced her way, but by this point anyone who isn't supposed to be there would have been stopped, so no one challenged Jaime. She approached one of the agents working on a laptop next to the entryway cabinet.

"Err, do you know where Agent Caulfield is?" The agent pointed out a blond woman working towards the back of the room, then returned to his laptop. "Uh, thanks."

Jaime weaved through the crowd, making her way to the opposite side of Caulfield's folding table. She stood there for a second while Caulfield finished up her discussion with another agent, and when she looked her way, Jaime extended her hand and smiled. Caulfield instantly analyzed Jaime, viewing her outstretched hand with the same disdain as an offer to sweep the hotel dumpsters for evidence. "Hello, I'm Special Agent Jaime Ba-"

"Please," Caulfield said. "You're just Bledsoe's agent, we'll leave it at that."

Jaime didn't know what to do, except retract her hand and look around to see if anyone had overheard that. "Oh. Uh, sorry."

Caulfield looked at Jaime sideways for a moment. "Don't worry about it. Follow me, we need to talk."

"Good," Jaime said. "Talking's good. I have a few questions, actually." _Like __what __the __Hell __I__'__m __doing __here__._

Caulfield lead Jaime into the hallway bathroom and locked the door. "So, ground rules. I'm in charge of the security here; you guys are just here to assist. That means you'll follow my playbook, not Bledsoe's. Is that understood?"

"Understood," Jaime said. There was a pause, and Caulfield stared at Jaime for a second. "Uh, what _is_ Bledsoe's playbook?" Jaime asked.

"You're really green, aren't you?" Caulfield asked. "Okay. Here's how a Bledsoe op works. You get vague instructions to go somewhere and do something, and when you get there, he tells you the real mission and orders you to get the job done, no matter what. That's how he worked before, and that is **not** how I operate."

"Before?" Jaime asked. Caulfield shot Jaime through with another hostile glare. "Okay, okay, I get it. Jeez. I'm just here to help keep Gracia Valdez safe and help you find whoever your spy is."

Caulfield gave Jaime a curious glance. After a moment, her expression softened. "I'm sorry, I just saw that he still kept Pope around, and I just assumed...that, well, that you're like him."

"Well, I'm not whatever you think I am," Jaime countered. _Who__'__s__Pope__?_ she thought.

"Obviously," Caulfield said. "Okay, I'll make your introduction with Miss Valdez, and then you'll have a half-hour with her before you accompany her out for the day. We still can't confirm whether or not her father is actually in trouble, so my superiors have decided to allow her to continue her day as planned, just with extra security. I'll take you to meet her now, just follow my lead, Agent..."

"Just call me Jaime," Jaime said, and offered her hand a second time.

Caulfield took her hand, shook it and smiled a little. "Jaime. I'll still need a last name to introduce you to Miss Valdez, though."

Jaime shrugged after returning Caulfield's smile. "Baker is fine, I guess. That's what it says on my badge, at least."

"I've had worse," Caulfield said.

Caulfield opened the door, and Jaime followed her down the hall to Gracia's bedroom. A few quick knocks on the door were answered by another FBI agent, who opened the door the rest of the way to let Caulfield and Jaime in. Gracia sat on her bed, typing away on a netbook computer. The familiarity of the scene made Jaime smile a bit, but when she saw Caulfield's serious expression, she stifled the smile and put on her best business-like face.

"Miss Valdez, this is Special Agent Jaime Baker, with the Diplomatic Security Service. She's here to help with your protection detail for today," Caulfield said.

"That's great," Gracia replied. She looked at Jaime's suit and skipped over her face. "Is she going to follow me outside?"

"Yes, that's her job for today. She'll be joining your escort on your preparations for the dinner tonight," Caulfield said. "She'll be working the closest with you. I will be working on locating your father - we have half the FBI field office working on making sure he's safe. Do you have any questions?"

"No," Gracia said, eyes not moving from her netbook's screen.

"Good," Caulfield said. She turned to Jaime. "Just keep your eyes open for anything out of place. If you need to contact me, here's my card." She pulled a business card out of her jacket pocket and handed it to Jaime. "Remember, she's a diplomat's daughter, and you're representing the US government here."

Jaime pocketed the card. "So, no pressure, then," she said, managing a weak grin.

"Just follow our lead, and everything will be fine," Caulfield said.

Her job complete, Caulfield turned and left the room, leaving Jaime standing at the foot of Gracia's bed while two other FBI agents read their respective newspapers.

Jaime squared herself to Gracia's bed and tried to fold her arms the same way Caulfield and the other FBI agents seemed to do effortlessly. "So, Miss Valdez, what's the itinerary for today?"

"Shouldn't you know that already?" Gracia said, still not meeting Jaime's eyes. "The reception starts at 19:00 - that's 7 PM for you. I'm going out for shopping and some lunch once I'm dressed. Unless that 'conflicts with the security paradigm', Agent Baker."

Jaime was still fidgeting with her arms. _Maybe __it__'__s __something__ they__ teach__ them __at __the __FBI __Academy__._ "No, Miss Valdez, that'll be fine." She stepped around to the side of the bed and took a seat. "I know that this must be a very trying day for you, but I'm going to do my best to make sure that you stay safe and have a good time today and tonight, okay?" She added a small smile at the end to make the message a bit warmer.

Gracia scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Agent Baker," she said. Her netbook closed with a snap and she slid off the opposite side of the bed from Jaime. "I'm going to change now. We'll be leaving in ten minutes. Make sure you're ready then, I don't like waiting." Gracia turned back to look at Jaime, with that unique combination of boredom and disdain in her eyes that only teenage girls can pull off. "Do you need to follow me into the closet while I change?"

Jaime almost smiled, but then caught herself and merely shook her head. "No, Miss Valdez, I can stay out here."

"Good," Gracia said. Her long hair swung out behind her as she turned back around and walked off into the closet.

Jaime took a seat on the bed and watched the closet door. _Now__ I __know __how __Will __feels__,_ she thought.

* * *

_Tradecraft Commentary: Concealed Carry_

Plenty of people other than secret agents need to conceal weapons on their bodies. Want to do something better than tucking a pistol into the waistband of your jeans? Then you need to consider a few factors.

First, you need a holster. This isn't up for debate: a holster protects your gun, provides retention, smooths out the silhouette and lessens the chance that it snags on clothing. Unless you are in the kind of situation where you **did** literally just pick up a gun and need to hide it on your person without preparation, there's no excuse for not having a matching holster. (If this applies to you: good luck with whatever you're running for your life from, dude. But you probably should be fleeing the country, not reading fan fiction.)

Second, you need to consider where you want to conceal your gun. The classier cousin of the impromptu jeans tuck is a so-called IWB holster, Inside Waist Band. As the name says, this holster is supposed to be worn inside the waistband of your pants (or skirt). IWBs can be worn in different positions, following the "clock" metaphor you may recognize from every air combat movie ever: 12 o'clock is right in front, 3 is your right side, 6 is the center of your back, 9 your left side. For a right-handed shooter, an IWB holster generally sits either in the front (10 to 1 o'clock) or the right back (4 and 5 o'clock). These locations offer a good trade-off between concealment and being able to draw easily. The precise position depends on what you expect to be doing throughout the day; if you're gonna sit in a car, for example, a holster in your back is going to become uncomfortable quickly. There's no one golden path here: experiment and try different positions until you find the most comfortable one for your model of holster and gun. An IWB holster needs a strong belt to be clipped to, and you'll have to wear a larger size of pants to accommodate the holster - this can become a problem if you only have a few recognizable "carry pants", so unless your pants all look the same anyway, you may be looking at a bit of an investment in new clothing here. IWB holsters can be made of leather or Kydex; the latter is generally seen as tougher and holds its shape, protecting the gun from uneven wear, but can chafe against skin and doesn't mold to the wearer. To actually conceal the grip of the weapon sticking out over the waistband, you'll require some sort of cover - a t-shirt that's not tucked-in will generally do. To draw the weapon, you'll need to lift the shirt, though, which offers an opportunity for the gun to snag. However, IWB holsters do have a big advantage: they do not require a heavy cover, so they can be inconspicuously worn even in warm weather. Retention is also excellent.

Alternatively, you may wish to wear an OWB holster - Outside Waist Band. This clips onto the belt from the outside. Many of the points mentioned for IWB holsters apply here, too. OWBs are generally harder to hide - a concealed weapon visible through clothing is said to "print" - but quicker to draw from, second only to an unconcealed belt or drop holster. A wide t-shirt may suffice as cover, but OWBs generally require some sort of jacket to hide. Other than IWBs, OWBs do not require you to wear larger pants. One point that applies to both IWBs and OWBs is the use of cant - angling the weapon away from the vertical. A generally accepted angle for this is the so-called FBI cant, which is 15 degrees forward from vertical and seen on holsters intended to be worn toward the back. Proponents claim that this angle both eases draw and reduces printing, but as with many questions about holsters, it boils down to personal preference with no clear consensus one way or the other.

A classic concealed carry method is the shoulder holster. The advantages are relatively straightforward: being worn under a jacket, you generally don't have to worry about printing, though sharp-eyed observers may note the wide cut of the jacket itself and draw conclusions from that. This location also provides more space than waistband holsters, allowing you to easily conceal full-sized service pistols; some rigs even conceal shortened shotguns. Shoulder holsters come in a wide variety of configurations - some have the gun vertical, some horizontal, many include magazine pouches on the non-gun side to provide a hiding space for reloads and balance out the weight of the gun a little, some also provide loops that go around the belt and further anchor the holster. Freedom of movement is generally quite good with a shoulder holster. So, what are the drawbacks? Well, a concealed shoulder holster straight-up requires some sort of jacket. This makes them inconvenient in hot climates. Also, a shoulder holster is by its very nature always a "cross-draw" holster, meaning that the gun sits on your weak side and has to be drawn across the body before it is in position. This takes slightly more time than a straight draw (gun on wearer's strong side) and also means you sweep the muzzle of the gun over a large arc during the draw, which some shooters consider to be an unsafe draw method.

Another classic method is the ankle holster. Ankle holsters offer good concealment and mobility, but are generally very slow to draw from, and only have room to accomodate either a snubnosed revolver or a very small semi-automatic pistol, usually a simple blowback action in .380 ACP or weaker calibers. Therefore, ankle holsters are generally not considered a good choice for one's primary carry weapon, but can provide a good hiding spot for a smaller secondary "holdout" weapon. They require long pants to conceal, which again may be a problem in hotter locations. More exotic holsters like pocket holsters or garter holsters (the choice of every self-respecting femme fatale, according to Hollywood) generally have the same characteristics: good concealment, but difficult to draw and only suitable for smaller weapons.

What's a female secret agent to do when she has to conceal a larger weapon while wearing a tight dress? Accessorize! (And quietly fume that social convention allows her male colleagues to wear looser, multi-layered clothing like suits and tuxedos that offer far more hiding spots for concealed weapons.) Holsters can be built into purses, handbags, shoulderbags and all other kinds of external containers. The dangers here are that this article might be inspected separately and it generally takes longer to retrieve a weapon than from a worn holster; on the other hand, such articles can more easily accommodate hidden compartments to escape casual inspection. Also, external cases and bags can simply be made bigger and thereby hide larger weapons. Even a small briefcase has enough space to easily conceal a pistol or a compact submachine gun; a larger model may even fit a sniper rifle or automatic carbine if the weapon is designed to be easily broken down into smaller parts. Good luck getting your large briefcase through a security checkpoint without being asked to open it, though.

Which brings us to the next point, weapon choice. Some weapons are easier to conceal than others, and some favor specific kinds of holsters. For example, many people favor pistols with single-stack magazines like the Colt 1911 family because these weapons can be thinner; others advocate primarily for smaller grips and shorter slides, a popular option being the Glock 26. Another important schism can be found in the subcompact range for difficult concealment situations: semi-automatic pistols in this size are generally limited to relatively weak calibers whereas snubnosed revolvers can be chambered in powerhouse cartridges like the .44 Magnum. (The latter will make your wrist hate you, though.) On the other hand, semi-automatics can be thin, while revolvers always have to contend with their cylinders. As with many other gun topics, there is no consensus: at the end of the day, you have to make your own choices and pick a gun and carry method that suits you and can be worn comfortably.

One final note: comfort is a very important aspect and should be given some thought. A concealed weapon carried for self-defense will be worn throughout much of the day; if the carry method is not comfortable for you, that will encourage you to leave the weapon behind and thereby eliminate the point of the whole exercise. Also, comfortable carry is a big component of inconspicuous carry. Adjusting how a holster sits on your waistband, shifting the gun's weight, limiting your motion due to a chafing holster - all those are tells that something is off about you and readily visible to an observer. Ideally, a concealed weapon is worn in such a way that it literally makes no difference in how you carry yourself. While this ideal may never be reachable, it pays to work this issue, experiment with different methods and to practice. Most of the time, hidden weapons are not nearly as noticeable as we imagine them to be; but self-conscious carry can be very visible, indeed, at which point "concealed carry" becomes merely "inconvenient carry". Don't be that guy who flashes his gun to the whole street when he bends down and has the cops called on him.


	4. Chapter 4

Hey, all, a new chapter just in time for the holidays. Sorry for the long radio silence. Me taking on a full-time job might have had something to do with it. But rest assured that we were not idle - we've managed to solidify our planning a lot, drilling down to individual scenes, which has made this chapter quite quick to write and will speed up production from here on.

Oh, fuck. I just jinxed it, didn't I?

Anyway, enjoy! Today's commentary is - shock, gasp! - actual commentary on some story issues we felt were worth laying out so you can see where we're coming from.

* * *

Diego Valdez rolled onto his side as the morning sun popped above the retaining wall on the third floor of the San Francisco parking structure. The sudden compression of his grazing wound sent a shock of pain through his shoulder and jolted the diplomat upright, bouncing his head off the headliner of his consul-issued Jag. He moaned in pain and rubbed his forehead for a few seconds, then blinked his eyes open and chanced a look at himself. His $3,000 suit was ruined, caked with blood and grime from his narrow escape, and the car was in dire need of reupholstering, but his wound had stopped bleeding in the night and he was alive.

Valdez tried to think of what to do next, but all he **could** think about was how obvious he looked with a massive red stain down the front of his jacket and shirt. He took a look around to make sure he was alone, and then walked around to the back of the car and popped the trunk. Inside was a spare change of clothes, his briefcase and a metal hard case. The hard case caught his gaze and wouldn't let it go. As he stared at the case, the bloodstain was momentarily forgotten. Instead, he thought about the mess he had gotten himself into.

He had supplemented his income from time to time, selling meaningless shipping data and flight information to private companies looking to get an advantage in competitive Spanish government contract bids, but this was the first time he was contacted directly. The week before, two men were at his front door when he left his Barcelona apartment. One showed him a holstered pistol and the other told him to get into a black sedan. As they drove around his block several times, they told him that when he was to travel to San Francisco, he would transport a heavy metal case with him on the flight, and hand it to two men on the other side. They shoved the case in his lap and let him back out at his front door, but not before threatening both him and Gracia if he did not follow through.

He had looked inside the case. Usually, one would send the keys separately, to keep the courier honest, but he had found the keys taped to the side. It was an open invitation to look inside, Valdez figured, and curiosity had gotten the better of his fear and his experience, such as it was, of smuggling items in the diplomatic luggage. Inside the case was a metal cylinder, cold to the touch, with an array of blinking green lights that meant nothing to Valdez. He hadn't opened the cylinder, but that wasn't necessary - he had realized he was in over his head the second he saw it. Looking at the case again, he started to wonder if this was some kind of message to him - to mind his own business, because he was working for people who didn't mess around.

Instead, it had convinced him that this case could never reach its destination. Whatever was inside was clearly very bad news, the kind Valdez did not want on his conscience. But what kind of use was a clean conscience if it would get him killed? Him, and Gracia...

Valdez forced his eyes shut, blindly grabbed for the long coat stacked on top of his clothes and pulled it free. He turned away from the car and opened his eyes again. He struggled himself into the coat, his right arm throbbing and aching with almost every movement - but when he was done, a quick check in the side mirror showed that it was good enough to cover the worst of his injuries, though some flecks of blood on his pants were still barely visible. He cursed and reached into his jacket pocket for a handkerchief, but stopped cold when he realized the case had started ringing.

One hand still frozen in place inside his pocket, he slowly reached forward with his other hand and unlatched the case. The lid popped open too easily, and Diego Valdez looked inside the case for the second time. The metal cylinder with its array of blinking lights was still there, still cold to the touch, taking up most of the space inside the case. It was surrounded by ash-grey foam padding keeping it in place and protecting it from shock. The ringing sound was much louder now, though still muffled; Valdez realized that a piece of the foam padding was removable and pulled it out. Underneath sat a charging cradle with a phone, attached to a black plastic box. The touchscreen display of the phone was lit up, smoothly animated ripples flowing out from a green button with a stylized phone handset. Above the button, a large text display showed "Pick up Valdez" as the caller ID. Valdez froze and let the phone ring a few more times, but finally he picked it up, touched the green button and held the phone to his ear.

"Hello?" he asked.

"You made a big mistake, Valdez," the voice on the other end said.

"Whoever you are," Valdez said, "I am not giving you the case."

The voice sighed. "That's very unfortunate. I'll just have to tell my men following your daughter to kill her and her escorts. Goodbye, I guess."

"Wait!" Valdez shouted, immediately cursing at himself. "You do - you do anything to Gracia, and you will never get this case. I will destroy it."

"Well, that is a very dangerous suggestion, Valdez. You want to see your daughter alive, you will bring the case with you to -"

"No!" Valdez insisted, burning inside to find something, anything he could use against the other man. "I set the meeting place."

"You're one contrary son of a bitch, you know that?" the voice said.

"You want the case, you do what I say!" Valdez said.

"Sure, pal. Let's hear it. What's your plan, huh? How do you want this to go down, then?"

Valdez fumed. "I'll call you in an hour."

"Fine. You be sure and do that, Valdez. My number's in the address book. You ditch the phone, Gracia dies. You don't call back in an hour, Gracia dies. And if you lose the package -"

"I know, Gracia dies," Valdez said. "_Hijo de puta_."

"No. Gracia dies, you die, your family dies, Valdez. Talk to you in an hour."

"_Vete a la verga, culero_," Valdez said.

Valdez pressed the red button on the phone's display emphatically, then pushed the phone into his pants pocket without bothering to figure out how to turn the screen off. He went back to the trunk of the car and slammed the hard case closed, having spent enough time thinking about it. Underneath his neatly stacked clothes was a small travel bag; Valdez went digging for it, put it on top of the case and unzipped it. Several changes of underwear later, he found what he'd been looking for: the gun.

It was an older pistol, compact and with an all-steel exterior. Valdez knew it had once belonged to a cop, but his brother hadn't been very keen to expand on the gun's history - it was in the family, Diego Valdez needed it, and so it was in Diego's bag instead of Federico's night table. He turned the pistol over in his hands and imagined Gracia walking through a store in somebody's gunsights. It was a difficult image, and again he froze, as if refusing to deal with it could make everything go back to normal. Finally, he pulled his coat open and maneuvered the gun into the waistband of his pants at the back. Only when the gun was tucked in did Valdez let out his breath again. He didn't have much, but he had the gun and he had the cylinder. With that, he could maybe save Gracia, even if he couldn't save himself.

* * *

Richard Earlmayer's office had become eerily quiet when the crisis with Valdez began, and only now - with his little insurance policy finally activated - did Earlmayer allow himself to relax a little. Wherever Valdez was hiding out, it had to be hell on cellphone signals and GPS; the phone hadn't been able to determine its own location during Earlmayer's conversation with the wayward courier. Still, Earlmayer had set down his terms, and he had scared Valdez into setting up an exchange. There simply wasn't anything the Spaniard could do but deliver the package. And then, Earlmayer would be rid of that particular albatross.

The men he had sent to follow Gracia were due to report in a few minutes; Earlmayer thought that the little demonstration with Bob and Keith had motivated them sufficiently to not screw this up. Very soon, Earlmayer **would** have men in position to kill Valdez's daughter. After all, there was nothing more unprofessional than making empty threats.

* * *

After cleaning up breakfast and the living room, then hefting her robot back into her room, Becca was relieved to finally lock herself in the bathroom, climb out of her pajamas and take a relaxing shower. Jaime was always riding her about wasting water since Becca loved to lay down in the tub and feel the drops beat against her, but the respite from the prying eyes and creepy attention of Doctor William Anthros was more than worth it.

_Doctor William Anthros_, Becca thought again, mouthing the words with her eyes closed against the water. It's not that he was **really** creepy, per se. Becca thought of herself as worldly and experienced enough to know the difference between attraction and attention, and Will just struck her as trying way too hard to get her to like him. She could tell that now that he found some way of connecting with his girlfriend's little sister, he was going to just bug her about it over and over and try to just annoy her into liking him. What did he expect? He came in and started taking over a bunch of Jaime's time that she and Becca used to just spend together, and now he had her in this scary-weird job situation, put her into a place that Jaime obviously didn't want to be in...

Becca shook her head and stood up in the tub to start washing her hair. Maybe Will wasn't such a bad guy. She decided that she'd smile and play nice as best as she could. Maybe if Will just stopped trying so hard, it'd be easier. But until she figured out what Will's position in all of this Bledsoe stuff is, she would keep him at arm's length. Preferably a bit further.

Becca dried her hair and wrapped the towel around herself for the quick jog back down the hall to her room. She opened the door and quickly hopped back onto the carpet, enjoying the feel of the fibers between her fingers for a moment before she saw that Will was just a couple feet to her left.

"Yow!" Becca shouted and jumped to her right, hands going to push her towel against her chest and waist. "What the _hell?_"

For his part, Will almost reflectively flinched away from looking at her, keeping his head to his side and even raising a hand in front of his eyes. "Sorry, sorry!" he said. "Go! Get dressed first. I wanted to talk to you, but...get dressed. I'll wait."

Becca narrowed her eyes at him. She couldn't quite read his lips through his panic. "Ever heard of personal space? What do you want?"

Will recognized the dilemma. He couldn't exactly turn to face her, not if he wanted to make it clear he wasn't looking. In lieu of adventures in this direction, he just waved his free hand.

"Look, just..." Becca quickly let her hand off the fold at her waist and waved for Will to turn back towards her. "You need to look at me so I can read what you say. Eyes up top, that's all." Once Will cautiously turned to face her, she cocked an eyebrow. "Well? What?"

If Will stared at the cabinets behind Becca any harder, they might have burst into flame. "It really can wait until, um, until you are wearing something more decent than a towel, Rebecca. I'm sorry. I did not mean to - you know. I'll be over here when you're done, if that is alright with you."

"Yeah, sure." Becca turned away, then looked back. "Next time, you know, just let me know you want to talk."

"Sure!" Will said. "I mean, I knocked. A few times."

Becca gave him a withering look and pointed at her ear. "Deaf?"

"Oh! Yes, I'm sorry, Rebecca, of course." Will said, looking horrified.

"Just...next time, there's a button next to the bathroom door," Becca said, and reached behind herself to push it once or twice. "It flickers the lights in the bathroom, lets me know that you want something. Okay?"

"That makes sense," Will said. "Did you wire that up yourself?"

"Some of it, I did the soldering, Jaime drilled the holes," Becca said, and stared at Will for a second. "Will? Do you mind?"

"Yes, right!" Will said. "You get clothes, I'm over here, we talk." He looked back briefly. "So...I'm going over here now, and - you know."

Becca sighed, rolled her eyes and started to walk back to her room. She smiled a bit as she walked down the hall. _Okay, I can see a bit of why Jaime likes him. He is kinda cute when he's flustered.

* * *

_

Becca dropped the towel as soon as her bedroom door was locked behind her, scrounged together some mismatched underwear from her dresser and flipped open her netbook to wake it up while she threw on a clean pair of jeans. Once she noticed it hit the log in screen, she jumped onto her bed and opened her email. Her messages to Oscar usually were replied to the next day, and if he was on schedule, now would be the time to pick it up. Sure thing, his reply was the top message in her inbox.

_gmhfeynman,_

_I need confirmation that we are meeting today. If you can't make it, tell me now. I can't risk going to the library if you're not going to be there, too. Please respond ASAP._

_Oscar_

Becca sighed and quickly typed out her reply.

_Can't make it today, sister's boyfriend is being all clingy. Sorry. She should be back tomorrow, she's out doing something for her boss today, and then I'll be free._

_gmhfeynman_

To Becca's suprise, the reply came back almost instantly after sending the message.

_gmhfeynman,_

_A babysitter? You're not backing out on me, are you? Give me your cellphone number and I'll guide you. _

_Oscar_

Becca's eyebrows went up at the message.

_No, no. _Becca smiled as she wrote the next sentence. _I have been looking for an excuse to get away from him. I'll be dressed and outside in 15 minutes. My cell number is (650)555-4329._

_gmhfeynman_

The next message took a little longer, enough so that Becca began to worry a little, but after a few minutes, it did come.

_gmhfeynman,_

_set your phone to vibrate. I'll provide support through text messages. I can't speak right now. Pull the phone's battery before you get into the building. I'll have a spare burner phone for you when we meet._

_Oscar_

Becca smiled and tapped out her last reply.

_Gotcha. Talk to you in 15 minutes. ;)_

_gmhfeynman_

Becca clicked her netbook shut and stuffed it in her messenger bag. A clean t-shirt was thrown on, followed by socks and sneakers, and her bag slung over her shoulder before she opened her door. Will was still waiting at the other end of the hall and looked up when he heard the door open.

"Ah, Rebecca," he said. "You're dressed now, and - where are you going?" He looked at her. "Oh, right, you said you wanted to go to the library. Actually, that's fine by me, we can talk about the competition on the way. Let me just get my shoes."

"Actually, I kinda wanted to walk to the corner market first," Becca said. "I'll just be a few minutes. What do you want to talk about?"

"Well, I had a great idea!" Will said, smiling. "I've been thinking about your robot, and I believe you'd be eligible to enter this year's West Coast Robo-Quest in the Junior category. It's run by CalSci, you know, and I do believe you have a very good shot at the Gold." He reached into his pocket. "Oh, do you need money for the store?"

Becca ground her teeth slightly at how he offered up money, but she didn't have the heart to tell him that her robot was already a shoe-in for the gold medal at the same robotics meet - with the CalSci grad student team. She hadn't had a chance to upload her latest code revisions yet, of course. "No, I'm good, thanks," she said, and walked past Will to the front door and turned around to face him. "I'll be back in a few."

"Okay," Will said, calling after her. "I printed out the application form, so I can fill it in and you just have to - what do you call it, anyway? There's a spot for the robot's name. I guess people do that."

"Of course it has a name, it's my baby," Becca said with a smile. "Peeker. Because of the cameras."

"Of course," Will said, then turned around, picked up the form and looked up at Becca as she opened the door. "Let me just put that down. What's the hardware platform it's running on?"

Becca didn't acknowledge his question as she walked out the door and shut it behind her.

Will seemed stunned for a moment, but then pointed at the front door after Becca. "Right, deaf, yes." He reached into his pocket and pulled his cellphone free; he had the display lit and Berkut's number selected before he paused to consider. The corner store really was just a short walk away, but he had to make sure she was safe. He pressed the button. After a few seconds of dialing and swapping handshake codes, he was put into contact with the leader of the protection detail.

"Anthros here," he sighed. "Rebecca Sommers has left the apartment and is on the move."

* * *

The first hour of Jaime's career in VIP protection could be summed up quickly: sit in the draft of an A/C and try not to look bored. The car ride to the shopping mall was a bit of a slog, what with coordinating a chase car and taking what seemed like the singular slowest route through downtown San Francisco. Gracia wasn't up for chatting, but at least showed some sort of expressions on her face; the FBI agents with them might as well have been mannequins. Jaime tried to mimic their looks as best she could, but she couldn't help flashing Gracia the occasional comforting smile. Gracia merely looked up, stared at her for a moment, then went back to her phone or staring out the window.

The bustle and activity inside the mall, then, felt like a welcome relief from the dreary ride, although the crowd and the open sidelines would have given a security professional heart palpitations. Gracia, Jaime observed, was a more considerate shopper than Becca - less prone to whispering "Ooh..." and darting into random shops, at any rate. Instead, she walked at a steady pace and made clear indications. _She's used to being escorted_, Jaime thought.

Gracia didn't find much of note in the first shop they visited, and in the second one, Jaime barely had time to raise an eyebrow at the price tags - _120 dollars for a t-shirt, that's obscene_ - before Gracia hit the checkout. The third one, however, with a decor of white wall panels and a distinct overemphasis on mirroring surfaces that shouldn't be mirrored, seemed to hold Gracia's attention more successfully, and in short order, Jaime found herself carrying several summer dresses while walking behind the diplomat's daughter, trying to keep up.

Jaime looked around and saw that the rest of the FBI detail was a good distance away, either watching the front doors or wandering through the store, looking at shoppers, and figured this was a good moment to try to talk to Gracia. "So, how are you holding up?"

"I'm fine, Agent Baker," Gracia said flatly. "There's nothing I can do but be here and buy new things, is there?"

"Well, if you know anything about where your father might go, or what he might be doing?" Jaime asked, trying to mimic the look that Caulfield gave Gracia earlier.

"I have no idea, Agent Baker," Gracia said. "I didn't have an idea for the first five agents who asked me, either. If I knew anything, I would have said it right at the start. I don't. I have no idea where my father is or what he might be doing. And I'm trying not to think about that too much, if you don't mind."

Jaime was shocked at the burst of anger from Gracia. "I - I - err, I'm sorry, Gracia," she stammered. "I just want to do what I can to help find your father."

"Yes, because he's a very important diplomat. I understand what's at stake," Gracia said.

"No, Gracia, because he's your father," Jaime said, putting down the stack of clothes she was carrying. "I'm here to keep you safe and help find your father, I don't care about whatever political schemes are going on here. Okay?"

Gracia sighed. "Political schemes, Agent Baker? What do you suspect my father of?"

"Oh! Nothing, nothing," Jaime said. "It just that - well, it seems like - there has to be a reason why he's in trouble, right?"

"Right now he's **missing**," Gracia said. "And I'll thank you to be more careful with your implications, Agent Baker."

"I don't mean to imply anything, Gracia, I really don't," Jaime said, forcing herself to stiffen up and stay Agent Baker. "There's just a lot that's going on, and I'm trying to get to the heart of it. And trying to help you feel safe and confident that we can help you and help your father."

"I'm confident you won't drop those clothes," Gracia said. "Agent Baker, I'm sure you're a very nice person in your time off, but I've heard enough sincere platitudes from people in suits today. I'm not a baby, I don't need your reassurances. What I would like for you to do is to leave me to my shopping, sit at my table for lunch and next to me in the car when we ride back to the hotel. **That** is your job."

Jaime stood stunned for a moment. "Yes, of course," she said quietly.

Gracia bit her lip. "But thank you for your concern."

Jaime managed a small smile for Gracia. "Sure, no problem." She picked up the stack of dresses again. "Anything else you want to look at here?"

"I need to try those on first," Gracia said. "Can I trust your opinions about fashion?"

"My sister's about your age, she trusts me well enough," Jaime said, her smile widening as she regained her footing. "When she's not running from rack to rack, talking about how inefficient the store's sorting mechanisms are."

Gracia raised an eyebrow. "Good enough. Come with me into the dressing rooms, I could use a second opinion."

* * *

Renting a few floors of a hotel to protect a diplomatic entourage led to one circumstance Antonio Pope was quite grateful for: plenty of empty rooms inside the perimeter. He had picked one to set up shop in, which in his case didn't mean much more than popping a laptop onto the table and setting up communication links - one cable running under the door to the FBI's local network, one satellite radio link back to Berkut. Pope always had a talent for traveling light.

The laptop's screen was cycling through the FBI personnel database, searching for information on FBI agents Brown and Finlayson - one mysterious interloper at Paradise, one mole in the San Francisco field office, both now very deceased. But with a little luck, their files would get Pope a step closer to figuring them both out. Which left only the day's distraction. He reached for his cellphone - one Berkut operations phone, as electronically clean as the next - and dialed Special Agent Sandra Caulfield's number. She picked up promptly; Pope had expected no less.

"Hello Sandra," he said, trying to sound warm. "It's Antonio. I'm all set up and wanted to talk strategy with you."

Caulfield certainly did not reciprocate the cordial tone. "Tell me what you're planning on doing, and I'll tell you what you can do, Pope."

"Okay, cards on the table, I like that," Pope said. "Single interviews, one on one. That gives us the best chance to get at information without cross-contamination or collaboration between the moles."

"I've seen how you handle solo interviews," Caulfield said. "No way I'm putting **my** men through **your** wringer. You do your interviews with an FBI agent that I choose."

"How do we know he's not one of the moles, then?" Pope said. "Your concern for **your** men is touching, Sandra, but I'm here to get at the truth."

"He wasn't on the protection detail, so he had no reason to participate in this leak," Caulfield said. "No motive, no mole, you know that."

_Must be a nice world you live in, Sandra_, Pope thought. "That's a risk I can't take, Sandra."

"This is my house, Pope. Take it or leave it."

"You'll hear from me," Pope said, then simply hung up. He glanced at the laptop screen. This was turning out to be a lot of trouble for access to those files. The next number he dialed was predictable.

"Bledsoe," Berkut's director said.

"It's Pope. Caulfield doesn't seem to want my help with her missing diplomat, and the Brown and Finlayson files are almost copied. Permission to finish up and head back to Wolf Creek?"

"Is she being difficult or impossible, Pope?"

"Difficult, Sir."

"Then we stick it out," Bledsoe said. "One-time file access is one thing, a friend in the FBI another - she'll be a worthwhile asset. As long as you can help her in some way, keep at it. If this investigation of hers is a success, I want our fingerprints all over it. Will that be a problem, Pope?"

"No, Sir," Pope said. "I can manage."

"Good. Contact me if you find anything."

"Yes, Sir."

"Just stick with being nice on this one, Pope," Bledsoe said. Pope thought he could hear his boss smiling. "Good hunting."

"Thank you, Sir."

Another call terminated. Pope thought for a few seconds. Then he called Caulfield again.

"We'll do it your way," Pope said, skipping introductions and pleasantries. "Who is the agent you want to sit in on the interviews?"

"Special Agent Nick Eaton," Caulfield said. "I'll let him know to join you as soon as we're done here." She paused for a second. "Pope, I'm putting my ass on the line bringing you and Bledsoe into this investigation. You're not technically cleared to be assisting in this, so I need whatever it is that you do to be by the book and keep my nose out of trouble. I know we have our differences, but I did my part in keeping you out of deep shit before, just try to do the same for me. Okay?"

_Chatty Cathy_, Pope thought. "By the book and no trouble for you, Sandra. Don't worry. We have your back."

"Thanks, Antonio. Good luck," Caulfield said, and hung up.

Pope looked to the laptop. The file trawl had paused; a large window hung on top of it, and Pope took a moment to read it.

_This file is locked by order of the Office of Professional Responsibility. Your access has been logged for further review._

A smaller display in the lower right corner showed rapidly changing columns of numbers - one of Nathan Ambrose's tools, and a very useful one at that. After a few seconds, the FBI file download continued.

"Hm," Pope mused, then closed the window. Someone else would deal with it eventually.

* * *

Caulfield walked out of the elevator on the fifth floor of the San Francisco Hall of Justice and down the hall to the CompStat offices, where Captain Jeremy Han waited for her with a hot cup of coffee and a stack of incident reports from that morning. Captain Han was a thin man, with short-cropped black hair and neatly trimmed eyebrows. When she entered the office and flashed her badge, she was directed to him and greeted with a little smile. Her eyes skipped over the decor: cubicles with asset-tagged computers and small flatscreens, fluorescent lights in a drop ceiling. Very 90s government rococo.

"You must be Special Agent Caulfield," Han said. "Captain Han, SFPD, we talked on the phone. I've got those reports you wanted."

"Thank you, Captain," Caulfield said, and started flipping through the report list before she even took a seat.

Han carried the rest of the stack to the open desk. "If you don't mind me asking, what do you need these reports for?"

"If you're looking for someone who might be in trouble, it helps to go looking for trouble," Caulfield said, not looking up from the folders.

Han smiled thinly. "We're the SFPD, Agent Caulfield. We deal with lots of different kinds of 'trouble', and knowing what we're looking for might help. You've got a missing person, huh? Anything we can profile with?"

"APB went out this morning, but thanks," Caulfield said, finally looking up and giving Han a slight smile. "Still don't know if he actually is in trouble, but I like to cover my bases." One set of reports stood out to her, and she started digging through the files until she found the set she was looking for. "These reports, shots fired, man being pursued by two other men, can you get the traffic camera footage for this area?" she asked.

"Yes," Han said. "I had a feeling your call might involve this. One of the more high-profile incidents this morning."

Caulfield had the time to drink about half of her cup of coffee until Han had the videos loaded and ready to watch on his computer.

"Okay, we have two angles on the scene. This one's closer to the shooters."

The video had all the hallmarks of a traffic cam - middling resolution, black & white, timestamped. Caulfield watched as the video played. For a few seconds, it showed normal traffic, cars and pedestrians going past it. Then, one corner of the view showed rapid movement - a man running out of a side alley and forcing his way through the crowd. Only a few steps behind him, two more figures emerged from the alley; one raised what was clearly a gun. Then, panic and people running. There was no audio, but Caulfield could imagine the sounds of gunfire and screaming. The man they were firing at had seemingly disappeared into the crowd; Caulfield only picked up the trail again when a car peeled out of its parking space at the side of the road and sped off.

"- and this is an angle on the car," Han said, switching to another video. This one was cut down to the few seconds of the car screaming down the road and past the camera. "There's a shot of the plate. It's not a 100%, but we're pretty sure that's the one you're looking for."

Caulfield looked at the partial plate; it matched the plate number of the car Valdez had been assigned. "Yeah, that's our guy. Can we get a shot of the shooters' faces?"

"Actually, yes," Han said. "The two of them decided to run directly toward the camera for their escape. Here, let me grab the images." He froze the video and selected a box around each of the men's faces. The images were automatically enlarged and displayed on screen. "We didn't get any hits in the state database," Han said. "But you might have more luck."

"I can run it against our database and international lists," Caulfield said. "If I can have files of those images -"

Han handed her a flash drive. "Already copied for you."

"Thanks," Caulfield said. "You guys are really on the ball."

"Dignitary Protection was on that detail, too," Han said. "We're all on the same team here, aren't we? Anything else I can help with?"

Caulfield gave Han a professional smile. "No, thank you. Just need to use a computer."

Han pointed down the row of cubicles. "Third one on the left."

Caulfield nodded and walked down to the empty desk. She slid the flash drive into the computer and quickly emailed the pictures to her team back at the hotel with instructions to run them through the FBI and international databases. She expected that to take a few minutes at least, but before she had a chance to finish the other half of her coffee, she received a call on her cell phone.

She flipped her cell phone open. "Caulfield."

"We got a match to your mystery shooters in the database, and they're local boys," Agent Cooper said. Cooper had the most time in service of the agents left at the hotel, which made him the one who held down the fort and coordinated with Caulfield. "Keith Franklin and Robert Melville."

Caulfield stood up from the desk. "Great, let's go pick them up."

"No need," Cooper said. "SFPD found them this morning, in a field at Hunter's Point, shot to death."

She sighed. "Okay, notify SFPD that I'm on my way to the scene and that we're taking over the case."

"Will do," Cooper said.

* * *

The word "field" might have summoned romantic notions of green grass blowing in a soft breeze; this, however, was a patchwork of sickly grass locked in perpetual warfare against reddish dust. Low-density commercial spaces for the next half mile in all directions, except for the clear shot to the South Basin coastline. This, Caulfield figured, really was one of those places that naturally attracted dead bodies.

Her badge got her past the yellow tape and all the way up to the bodies. The initial canvas of the area was almost done; only the medical examiner was still at the exact spot, standing next to the corpses, while a slightly portly man fit the stereotype of a detective far too well to not be in charge. The way the bodies were sprawled on the ground spoke to a most undignified funeral procedure - maybe carried out the back from a van and then just dropped onto the ground.

The detective seemed to be waiting for Caulfield's arrival, and walked up to her as she ducked under the police line. "Agent Caulfield?" he asked, picking his way toward her. "Detective Fisher, howyadoin'." They exchanged a curt handshake. "I hear you're interested in those bodies."

"They're part of an ongoing federal investigation," Caulfield said.

"All yours," Fisher said, making a hand movement that seemed to signify washing his hands of the case. "Anonymous body dumps never close quick and easy, glad to have this one off my hands." He nodded and stepped around Caulfield. "Nice to meet ya, Agent."

Caulfield kept her focus on the bodies as Fisher left the scene. "Nice to meet you too, Detective."

To avoid contaminating the scene, Caulfield carefully stepped in the detective's size 12 shoe prints and approached the bodies. Both had multiple gunshot wounds, their clothes smeared with blood and mud. The medical examiner was in the process of rolling the bodies, checking for items underneath them or inside their pockets, when he stood up with a scrap of paper in his hands. "Found this, Agent. It's a picture, you know who it is?"

Caulfield pulled a tissue out of her pocket and grabbed the picture with it. It was a simple computer print out, with just one image on it: Diego Valdez's Spanish government ID. She handed the paper back to the ME to bag and worked her way back outside the tape, pulling her cell phone out again. She sighed again as she dialed the task force back at the hotel. _What did you get yourself into, Valdez?

* * *

_

Commentary: Rebuilding Bionic Woman

**Robert:** Hey, everybody! We figured we'd give you a break from the very technical tradecraft explanations that have adorned the last few chapters and just go for something that's a little more 'actual commentary'. In this chapter, we'll be looking at a few of our gripes with the show we're ostensibly writing stories for, and how we set out to fix them. With me is, of course, Kasey Kagawa, who hasn't gotten to address the readers yet since I've written all the introductions so far. Say hello, Kasey.

**Kasey:** Hello. For this commentary bit, we're going to be focusing on the characterization screwups from the remake, of which there are many. So very many. Robert, who has actually watched more than ten minutes of the show before attempting to stab himself in the eyes, will be doing most of the talking.

**Robert: **I have actually seen **all** of the show, thank you very much. But let's not get bogged down in MST3K'ing it; obviously the show had a lot of interesting ideas worth looking at, or we wouldn't be here writing. However, owing to the format, we're looking at what didn't work here. I figure I'll just start with Jaime Sommers, our protagonist. I know that "They didn't know what to do with her" is a cliche phrase to use, but it did come across that way. What is Jaime's deal? And what's with her attitude?

**Kasey:** The thing that stuck with me was the wild yo-yoing her attitude and personality goes through. She goes from freaking out and crying over seeing the mechanisms in her bionic legs to being dead-eyed and creepy, seeing through the one-way glass and saying "Boo". You can't have her swing between "scared, vulnerable and over her head Everywoman" and "cold, edgy, badass sociopath" that quickly, if at all.

**Robert: **And this is one of the first things we set to changing. The truth does lie somewhere in the middle. Our Jaime is in over her head, but less panicky; at the same time, she's been in fights, but hasn't done the faux-badass thing. Which is one thing that the show in general really needed less of, to be frank - it wasn't just Jaime, it also hit Sara Corvus pretty hard. I don't know about you, but I was tired of what passed for witty banter and one-liners in the show after their rain fight in the pilot. And when the show tried to show Corvus's vulnerable side, it made her seem like she had an even worse case of split personality than Jaime. But we'll talk about her another time. Back to Jaime and such wonderful scenes as how her rebound "date" after Will's death in the pilot in a bar's restroom almost had her crush a guy. Mr. "Right Now" indeed. That just had to go. Watching the show, I had a very hard time feeling anything for Jaime because of this "edginess"; she didn't elicit sympathy from me, and so her problems just didn't make me care. One thing we agreed on very early: our Jaime very much does not like hurting people, and she's not casual about it when she does have to do it.

**Kasey:** She's strong, but not "edgy". The Jaime in the remake seemed like a bloody-minded sociopath, she was so blasé towards violence. Our Jaime definitely swings far more towards the Everywoman mold, but a more realistic one. She's strong, tough, but definitely way, way over her head and terrified of what's going on around her. She's keeping it together through holding onto Will, Becca, and the fact that she has been doing some good. No matter how scared she is, saving San Francisco does give one a sense of accomplishment, but she still hates violence. The way she was dragged into this world hasn't helped, either.

**Robert:** Our Jaime wouldn't work, in my eyes, if we hadn't rejiggered her relationships with other characters, too. The two big ones are with her sister, Becca, and with her boyfriend, Will. I'm not quite sure what the show producers were going for with Becca and Jaime, but their relationship seemed to swing too wildly - at some points, Jaime seemed to clamp down on Becca, at others they were - how did the A.V. Club put it? - Gilmore Girls-ing. Becca, despite pretensions to being a "hacker", was never shown to have any specific tech skills nor interests; she seemed like, if you'll forgive me, a typical brat. And again, that made it harder to care for what went on between them; if they both can't get across how much they care for each other, then please take it to family counseling, not to a TV show.

**Kasey:** Becca was by far our biggest retool, since as far as I can gather, she was completely useless except as a launch pad for plots that ultimately had nothing to do with her. The hacker thing is good, but as has been described to me, there was very little sister-like interaction going on between the two of them. Particularly in a situation where such traumatic events have happened to the two of them, Jaime and Becca would be inseparable to the point of co-dependency, and that's what we put in here. As far as Becca herself goes, we were simply determined to make her actually a genius hacker, someone who we can justifiably say that is a teenage prodigy in her field.

**Robert:** Our Becca enjoys the technical challenges in life much more. She likes figuring out the tough problems. And she's a voracious reader. Of course, she also happens to be very intelligent and is clearly thriving on punching way above her weight class where it concerns robotics and related fields - ah, let's not mince words. I agree, she's a genius. And that's not just her IQ, but how she carries herself. She excels because it's in her nature to want to always go further up, to advance and to develop, and that puts her apart from others without her quite wanting it. She can't help sticking out. As for her skills, I wanted a kind of Richard Feynman-style old school hacker, somebody who isn't just a code monkey, but someone who's deeply curious about how things work and very committed to figuring things out, with a healthy skillset in hardware. After all, hackers did take tools to toasters, locks and cars once upon a time. There's a fundamental disrespect for authority, but that's too broad, maybe - it's really institutional authority. Becca, like so many hacker protagonists, respects people who know their stuff, but loves to deflate self-important people. Call it mischievous if you have to, punk if you want, but it's there. We also decided to stick with the deafness that was part of the original pilot but dropped for the reshot one. I have to say, while the Mae Whitman version of Becca in the pilot was over the top in bad attitude towards Jaime, I liked that she was less outwardly attractive and a little isolated more than the rather blander interpretation of the series. (Not to fault Lucy Hale here, there just wasn't anything to do with her.) We didn't end up going that route and instead made Becca more outgoing and dare I say a little overeager, but I think with those changes, we've successfully turned someone who didn't really fit into the larger plot outside of providing complications into an integral part of the story.

**Kasey:** A part that will only be increasing as we go along, as well. She's not moody or dark like most "hacker" characters, she's just very, very bright, very enthusiastic and inquisitive, and very driven to do what she sets her mind to. Will, of course, has received a character upgrade simply by not being dead in our version.

**Robert:** There really just wasn't that much there to latch onto, so we kind of had to extrapolate from the few things we see of him in the pilot. Will's a genius, too, though I'm not sure exactly how super-smart he really is; the fact is, his invention, the anthrocytes, are the big game-changer in the setting and made Berkut's bionics program practical. Unfortunately, Will has the attitude to match it. He talks down to and lectures people at every turn, and quickly becomes resentful when he feels that he's not afforded the privilege of having the only right opinion in the room.

**Kasey:** Will is the other flavor of genius. Where Becca is casually brilliant in her own way, and often times is confused or surprised when she runs into the fact that other people aren't as smart as she is, Will never lets anyone forget that they're not as smart as he is.

**Robert: **Does he ever. And let's not forget his relationship with Jaime. We haven't gotten that deep into it, but in two words: not healthy. Still, it is a relationship, one they both take very seriously in their own way, and it provides us with more opportunities to set up stories down the line. As the rule of thumb goes, living characters are more interesting than dead ones. It was difficult to care about TV Will when he only had one episode to appear in and felt oddly distant from Jaime the whole time. You **can** make that kind of relationship / character type work, but it needs time.

**Kasey:** Jaime and Will's relationship isn't unhealthy, exactly. There are two parts of William Anthros, the outside world Will, and the Berkut Will. Public Will really does care about Jaime and wants to make things work with Becca. He loves that Jaime's as smart as she is, and he's making a big effort to overcome his personal problems to make Jaime happy, and by and large has been succeeding. Berkut Will is the genius side of Will, unfiltered. He's cold, ruthless, efficient, and it's a side of Will that Jaime hasn't seen or had to deal with until now. Berkut Will is also carrying around the baggage of Sara's escape from Berkut and the fear of augmented people when they're not under control, and now that Jaime is an augment, and not only that but one who has been very vocal about not wanting to be under Berkut's thumb, these two sides are in conflict. Right now, Will is working very hard at trying to keep the two sides of himself in check, both for Jaime's sake and for the sake of Berkut.

**Robert:** He knows exactly what she's capable of. He built her, and he was there for Sara's escape. He can't help look at her differently, but it's not all fear. Perhaps more worryingly, Will does take some pride in his "creation". It's this side of Will, the genius his father raised him to be, that's dangerous. And it's not helped by the feeling that the rest of Berkut is starting to turn against him. The neat separation between his private life and his work, Jaime, his position at Berkut - everything's starting to slip. And Will hates not being in control. Anyway, I think that's enough rambling for our quota. Closing thoughts?

**Kasey:** I think that the most important changes we've made to the story in comparison to the remake, resurrecting Will aside, is what we've done with Jaime and Becca. The characters in the remake were very flat, two-note affairs (one-note, in the case of Becca), and we've gone through a lot of thought and discussion on just who Jaime and Becca are, not just for us, but to each other and to the rest of the world. The core of any character-centric story is having the main characters be real people in your mind, someone that you can see sitting down next to you and chatting with for hours, people with nuances and real personalities, and that's what we've worked to bring to Jaime and Becca.

**Robert:** Really, we've discussed everything to an obscene degree. I think that shows that the concept has legs, and we're definitely looking forward to telling the whole story here. So, thanks for reading, guys, and we'll see you on the next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

Hello, true believers! (I promise never to use 'Excelsior!'.) Here's the next chapter of Big Sister for your consumeration. Feast well on it, for lo, it is twice as long as our usual chapters. Here's a lesson we've learned: better planning is nice, but does not necessarily lead to faster chapters - just longer ones. Please bear with us while we hammer that out. (Seriously, this is almost 14 thousand words. I've seen whole, excellent fics in less than that.)

This chapter, we're back to tradecraft commentary with some thoughts on dynamic entry. It's everything you ever wanted to know about executing a no-knock warrant (but were afraid to ask).

* * *

The corner store was, in a word, cramped, instant noodles in shelves opposite dog food. Becca had come in three minutes ago; that was the last time the door chime had rung so far, although she hadn't heard it, of course. The back corner with refrigerators full of 40s of malt liquor and sodas offered a little privacy, and between looks to the rest of the store - all 50 square feet of it - Becca's eyes were glued to the screen of her phone. After a few moments, the phone vibrated, and a new message popped open.

_Bus arrives at stop in three minutes, provides visual cover. Take to 16th Street BART but go into Walgreens and wait. Oscar._

Becca nodded at her cell phone's screen. She slid the phone back into her pocket as she slowly opened the door leading into the back of the shop. From there, she knew that would give her a clear line of sight to the bus stop. Nestled in between pallets of energy drinks and potato chips, Becca kept her eyes on the bus stop and one hand in her pocket on her cell phone. In the back of her mind, she wondered when - if ever - someone from her "tail" would come into the shop and check for her.

That question became irrelevant a few seconds later when she saw the front end of the northbound bus roll towards the covered benches on the street. Becca burst out of the rear doors and ran towards the doors, waving her hand to get the driver's attention. He held the doors just long enough for Becca to jump aboard, and when she turned around to pull her monthly pass out of her bag, she saw two men in matching khaki pants, dark windbreakers and military-esque haircuts watching the front door on the corner. One of them looked in the bus windows as it drove past, and Becca saw his body language go from "bored" to "panicked" in an instant when he spotted her on board.

* * *

Sgt. McIntyre knew the day was ruined when he saw the principal on the bus. His first instinct was to bolt for the car, but he forced himself to stay calm; as long as he wasn't sure if she was watching, he couldn't make his move. What he could do was talk to his partner, Staff Sgt. Paulito.

"She's on the bus," McIntyre said, eyes still fixed forward. Being able to talk while looking perfectly straight ahead was one of several useful skills he had learned in the Army. "How far to the next stop?"

"Should be four minutes," Paulito answered, not doing so badly in the looking straight ahead game himself. "Give it ten, then we head for the car, keep it casual."

"Is it just me or is she getting jumpier?" McIntyre asked.

"Don't ask me, amigo, as far as I know we're still good and stealth. Those slips happen when you have to keep your distance."

"Man, I hate this detail. Are we on night watch next week?"

"You wish. Carlson's team got it again."

"Fuck my life. Alright, let's follow the bus."

Neither the half-asleep elderly woman nor the mother and her child riding in the back looked much like a secret agent, so Becca took the opportunity to relax as she settled into her seat near the rear bus doors. Standing up on the bus wasn't such a good idea for her, since she couldn't hear the bus's engine speed up or slow down and correct her stance accordingly. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and fired off a quick text to Oscar:

_Made it onto bus. Saw two guys with military hair and jackets watching front of store, think they saw me get on._

A few seconds later, the phone vibrated in reply:

_That's okay. Keep going. Oscar._

Her phone safely back in her pocket, Becca leaned against the window and stared at the storefronts as they went past. Her mind drifted back towards Jaime, like it had done a lot recently. What ate at Becca more than anything wasn't the the fear of being caught by this Bledsoe character, wasn't the great unknown she was facing down. It was the thought that Jaime was caught up in something dangerous all on her own, something that she was too afraid of to even speak to Becca about. For as long as she could remember, Jaime hadn't kept any secrets from her, even before she moved in with Jaime.

_Three years now,_ Becca thought. As the bus coasted to a stop at an intersection, her mind drifted to a memory almost worn out from its familiarity.

* * *

Jaime rushed down the steps from the apartment house's porch before the car had even finished pulling into the parking spot. It was a bright summer day with only the suggestion of a breeze playing with the sleeves of Jaime's pale blue blouse - just the right weather for a family visit. Becca was first out of the car, of course, jumping out of the back and rushing to embrace her big sister as her trusty messenger bag bounced on her back. Jaime stopped her own progress, almost braced herself; Becca jumped, and Jaime caught her, spinning her around before clutching her tightly to her chest.

"Missed you," Jaime said, knowing that Becca couldn't hear it.

"I missed you _so_ much," Becca said, hugging Jaime even tighter.

"Hey!" came a loud male voice; Jaime looked up to see her dad standing next to the open driver's door, waving at her. His deep brown hair was pulled back into a short ponytail, its end hovering just above the collar of his white polo shirt. He had a small nose that seemed to be completely occupied with just holding his round-frame glasses in place. "Save some of those hugs for us, will you?"

"Coming!" Jaime yelled back; one more quick hug, then she put her little sister down and took a step back. Becca stood before her, beaming and looking up at her; she was starting to grow, but still two heads smaller than Jaime. She wore a white and red ringer t-shirt and black jeans, despite their mother's attempts to get Becca to dress up even a little. "I'll say hello to mom and dad," Jaime said and signed. "You should go help unpack."

Becca nodded. "Yes, I'll be right back," she replied.

While Becca darted back to the car, Jaime took a more leisurely approach; her mother was already at the trunk, retrieving Becca's luggage.

"Mom!" Jaime said. "Come on. I'll help you!"

"No, you won't," Madeline Summers said, a sly smile hiding in between the shoulder-length tresses of auburn hair. Most of it was pulled back into a ponytail, and the light sundress she wore exposed a few soft tan fringes from long hours spent tending to the garden in more sensible attire. "That's what your father is here for."

"Dad?" Jaime said, looking over to Ethan Summers - still standing at the door.

"Forget it," he said. "Not until **someone** hugs me."

"And if I help mom, you'll stand there all day?" Jaime asked.

"If that's what it takes," Ethan replied.

"Ugh, fine," Jaime said, pretending to be a little annoyed; she helped her mother wrangle one particularly heavy piece of luggage from the trunk, then hurried over to her father and embraced him.

"You're early," she said after she let go again. "Traffic was good?"

"And Becca was asking about you for the whole ride," Ethan said. "I may have picked up a ticket or two."

"Not my fault," Jaime said.

"Oh, yes, all those 'Jaime, Jaime, Jaime!' cries on the way here are not connected to you at all, girlie," Ethan said.

"Okay, I'm not **legally **responsible," Jaime remarked with a grin. "Come on, let's get you guys inside."

Becca was already waiting at the top of the steps, duffel bag in hand. She dropped the bag once she saw Jaime so she could sign. "Hurry up, I want to show you what I've been working on!"

"Okay, okay, go ahead!" Jaime said and signed. Once the door was unlocked, Becca sprinted upstairs, leaving Jaime and their parents on the landing below. "What has she been working on, anyway?" Jaime asked.

"What hasn't she been working on?" Ethan Summers said, his smile beaming with pride. "It was cryptography last week, I think. She asked if we could go to England and see Bletchley Park. She read a book about it, and, well - _Becca_."

"Can't read about something math or computer-related without wanting to do it," Jaime said. "I've got a fresh set of notebooks in her room, too."

"I'm sure they'll be full by tomorrow," Madeline said. "Jaime, listen - about today."

"We can't stay for tea," Ethan said, and Madeline looked at him with an expression of relief. "There's a conference on applying game theory to microeconomics in the Third World in LA, and we need to be there this evening."

"Our plane leaves in two hours, so we have just enough time to get Becca situated, give you both a hug and run out the door," Madeline said.

Becca left the front door to Jaime's apartment open, and the three of them dropped the rest of Becca's things in the living room, where she was waiting with a notebook on her lap and a pencil in her hands.

"So, game theory, huh?" Jaime asked. She struggled a bit with the signs for that, but Becca understood.

"It's so unfair!" Becca said. "Mom and Dad say that it'll be boring lectures for most of the time -"

"It will be, dear," Madeline said, but Becca wasn't looking at her and simply kept going.

"- but there's a talk about finding solutions for cake-cutting problems that sounds **totally** awesome!" Jaime watched Becca struggle to keep up the signing to go with her words, but about halfway through, her little sister gave up and just talked. As far as Jaime was concerned, that was a good decision, because she had lost track of Becca's hurried signs after the first phrase. However, for the next sentence, Becca resumed signing, looking to her mother every few seconds. "It's with all sorts of cool math that I've only read about, like Nash equilibriums, look!" Becca dug into her messenger bag and opened up a notebook to show to Jaime. All she saw was a page of equations, but Jaime knew that they meant something to Becca. Becca's face dropped slightly. "Mom also said that they probably won't have ASL translators, either."

"I called ahead," Madeline said softly, signing her words with ease. "I'm sorry, sweetie, they don't have anyone."

"Otherwise, you'd be right there with us," Ethan added.

"We'll just make our own fun here, okay?" Jaime said. "And you can tell me all about...equilibria."

"It's the math of making sure everyone gets what they want," Becca said. "Like me, and your potstickers."

"Oh, the potsticker equilibrium, that's a very specific solution," Ethan said. "It's 'Becca eats everything', isn't it?"

"Maybe," Becca said. "But Jaime gets to cook!" She looked to her big sister with a grin. "You like cooking."

"I like cooking for my little sister," Jaime said. "Okay, potstickers it is. We'll need to buy some stuff for that, then."

"I think that's our sign, Ethan," Madeline said. "Now, where are my two big girls?" She didn't need to sign that; opening up her arms was enough.

Jaime bumped Becca with her hip, and they both rushed Madeline, hugging her from both sides. "Love you, Mom," Jaime said. "We'll hang out when you get back from the conference."

"Of course," Madeline managed to squeeze out. Both sisters released her, and as Madeline caught her breath, Ethan was subjected to the same treatment, emitting the occasional "Oof!" and generally acting like he was literally being smothered with affection.

"I'll take good care of Becca this summer," Jaime said.

"You always do, Jaime," Ethan replied.

Becca detached from her father and took a few steps back so she could see both of her parents at once. "See you when you both get back," she said. "Get me the notes from that cake cutting talk."

"Sure thing, Becca," Ethan said. "I love you." Jaime noticed him raise his hands for that; her father was always trying to improve his sign language, but it just seemed beyond his abilities. His sustained effort did give him enough to cover some basics, though.

"I love you too," Becca said, first in reply to Ethan, then to Madeline. Goodbyes complete, Becca looked to Jaime briefly before she ran off to her room.

"So, how's the job?" Ethan asked.

"Ethan!" Madeline interrupted. "We're halfway out of the door already."

"The job's great," Jaime said, cutting off any potential argument. "The class on Chaucer less so. But nothing I can't handle."

"That's my girl," Ethan said, reaching his hand out as if to ruffle her hair; Jaime playfully pulled back, and they shared a smile. "There's just no stopping you, is there?"

"That's what I said when I told you I wanted to move out," Jaime said. A moment of silence interrupted the conversation as Jaime touched that particular nerve. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Ethan said. "It was time."

"But I've really got things figured out now. Work isn't getting in the way of college, my professors love me, they're already letting me TA for some of the freshman lit classes."

"Now **that** I want to see," Madeline said with a small laugh.

"I know it was a bit rocky at first - thanks for the money - but I can handle myself now," Jaime said. "I know what I'm doing."

"You do," Ethan said. "Okay, dad talk over. You've got it, Jaime. A lot more than I did when I was your age, running around Berkeley with a posterboard."

"You **did** meet Mom," Jaime said.

"And we lived on the sofas of friends and family for three years," Madeline said. "We could never have had what you have, Jaime." Tears welled up in her eyes, and Ethan wrapped his arm around Madeline's shoulder. "Oh, here I go again. I'm just so proud of how strong you've grown up to be. You're your own woman, Jaime, and nobody can take that away from you. I - _We_ know that you can take anything life throws at you."

Jaime sniffled a little, fighting back a tear or two herself. "Oh, Mom..."

"Don't even try to contradict her," Ethan said. "You know better."

Jaime nodded. "I wouldn't dare," she said as she moved in to wrap her arms around both of her parents again.

"Oh, jeez," Becca called; Jaime's head snapped around reflexively, spotting her little sister standing in the door. "Are you guys done? You're gonna miss that flight for real if you keep hugging all the time."

Jaime turned around and gave Becca a mischievous look. "Oh, yeah? What are **you** gonna miss if I tickle you blue?" she said, then jumped after Becca.

Becca squealed and turned to run back into her room, closing the door before Jaime could catch her. Jaime looked down and saw Becca's shadow under the door, then knocked three times. Becca quickly knocked back twice, then her shadow vanished as she ran back into her room. Jaime turned back to her parents with a grin. Ethan smirked like he was ready to jump in, Madeline rolled her eyes and smiled. They silently nodded their goodbyes, then hurried out the door.

* * *

Sometimes, the way Becca's brain worked did her more harm than good. When she became focused on a thought, it could become a trial in itself to get her attention, and this was one such occasion - the part of her brain that processed what she saw and determined that lots of people were leaving the bus had to raise its voice a bit, shout at the rest of her brain to get moving **now**, and so it was that Becca noticed she was at her stop perhaps ten seconds later than she should have. With the kind of speed that came easily to teenagers of small build, she crossed the bus in what seemed like the wink of an eye, darting past an annoyed driver and out the front entrance. The doors whooshed closed behind her, and the bus drove off. Becca's head swiveled left and right, scanning her surroundings for any sign of her "shadows". It was necessary, but not normal - normal would be to keep walking, to have a place to go right now. Eventually, it felt like they were enough annoyed looks being leveled against her that Becca moved, still not as certain of having lost her tail as she would have liked.

Across the street from the bus stop, a black SUV of unassuming make and model made a quick stop. With the bus gone, the two passengers had a decent view of the station - and Becca standing near the stop, looking around.

"Jumpy, yes," Paulito said with a smirk. "Sneaky, no. All cool, amigo."

"I don't like it," McIntyre said. "That's four close calls this week. What if she's doing this shit at night, too?"

"Carlson's problem," Paulito replied almost automatically.

"And if Carlson makes a report?" McIntyre shot back. "This isn't exactly All Quiet On The Western Front anymore."

"Huh?" Paulito said. "What does that even mean?"

"It's a movie, dude," McIntyre said. "It's about World War Two and shit."

"Whatever," Paulito said. "We've got eyes on target, that ticks our checkbox."

McIntyre fell silent, and they both kept watching Becca as she navigated through the station. If the two Berkut soldiers didn't have their eyes glued to her, they might have noticed that they were being watched in turn from the shadows. A figure in a dull red baseball cap watched both Becca and her Berkut tail from the window of a convenience store across the street. A phone was pulled out of a pocket and a rapid-fire text sent to Becca's phone.

_You made it, but with your tail. Looks like we'll have to make them work. Keep your phone in your hands - this will be tricky. Oscar.

* * *

_

The "waiting around" part of Jaime's assignment continued on a bench next to the row of dressing rooms. The waiting area was sparse; a plain white bench and more mirrors were all the decorator had decided the room needed. Gracia was working her way through a pile of clothing with no appreciable system, combining items and occasionally venturing out to ask Jaime's opinion. The more Jaime tried to reassure her that she looked good - which, to Jaime's eyes, she certainly did - the less enthused Gracia seemed to become. Jaime sighed, more than once.

_Do you have a moment?_ Truewell said in her head.

Jaime turned away from Gracia's dressing room door as she saw her bare feet and ankles walk from side to side. "Yeah, what's up?" she whispered.

_Jaime, I know you're trying to connect to her. She's hurting, yes, but you can't talk to her like that right now. She's also the daughter of an important diplomat and your protectee. You need to keep some professional distance._

"No, she's a scared teenage girl who doesn't know what's happened to her father," Jaime hissed over the com link. "And I know scared teenage girls inside and out, trust me."

_You know Rebecca,_ Truewell countered. _Look, Jaime, you're just coming on too strong. It scares her off. Back up a little, act professional. Put her at ease._

Jaime's reply was lost when a glance across the mirrors get her eyes stuck on a man outside the shop, a sharp visual even through the interspersed clutter of the shop. He wore a suit, but not a dressy one, hid his eyes behind sunglasses and wasn't carrying any shopping bags. He had the same look that always warned of trouble at her old job tending bar at Finnegans Wake; shoulders and elbows puffed out, eyes not looking for friends or at the bar, but instead sizing every person in the room up, looking for the greatest threat, the easiest target, and the quickest way out the back.

In the meantime, Truewell hadn't stopped her lecture. _You need to pay less attention to trying to make her feel better and more attention to protecting her from threats and finding this mole. Okay, Jaime? ...Jaime?_

"Sorry, I noticed someone looking weird and threatening, gotta go," Jaime said. She started to stand up when Truewell interrupted her.

_Sit back down and don't make a move, _she said. It sounded strange coming from her; Truewell rarely ordered people around directly.

Jaime sat back on the bench. "Of course you can see what I'm doing," Jaime said.

_Just watch him through the mirrors if you can. See what he does. Your...visual kit should help you pick up what he's doing. I'm running his image through our database now._

Jaime nodded, leaned back against the wall and watched the man on one of the more excitingly-angled mirrors on the opposite wall. After his little scan around the shop through the window, he just stood there, waiting for something. _Or someone, _Jaime thought. Her time as a teacher's assistant, working in the library, living with Becca and tending bar all depended on her being able to see where people are looking, a skill that came into play when the man locked eyes with someone inside the store. Following his line of sight, Jaime spotted the object of his attention: one of the agents on the security detail!

"I've got a threat **and** a mole," Jaime whispered. "How's that for paying attention?"

_Stay still,_ Truewell whispered, as if it was her on the bench. _Watch what they do closely._

Jaime sat like a statue, her eyes locked on the 'threat' as he entered the store. Although the man clearly wasn't a brilliant spy, given his conspicuous look, he was careful not to get close to the mole; instead, he wandered to the other side of the store. He stopped at a rack of leather sight line was briefly broken by other shoppers wandering through it, but Jaime caught the tail end of the man touching the inside of the jacket.

"What's he doing?" Jaime whispered.

_It's a dead drop,_ Truewell said. _Keep your eyes on the jacket and watch who handles it next._

"Okay, I need your opinion," Gracia said suddenly. The dressing room door opened, and the diplomat's daughter stepped into the waiting room wearing an emerald green tank top made of shimmering material with a black skirt whose life goal was clearly dropping a few more inches of material and thereafter passing for a belt. "Well, what do you think? Be brutal."

Jaime's eyes flicked back and forth between the mirror and Gracia while she tried to come up with some kind of response to this new kind of stress. "Err..." she stuttered. As the compromised agent started to walk across the shop floor towards the jacket, Jaime's mind went for its default response: honesty. Her eyes shot back to Gracia for a moment. "Gracia, it's not safe out here right now," she whispered. "Could you go back into the dressing room and wait for me to tell you it's safe?"

Gracia said nothing, but nodded and disappeared back into the cabin, closing the door behind her; as a diplomat's daughter, she recognized the expression and tone of a bodyguard on alert. Jaime's eyes darted back to the mirror, hoping to spot a glance of the hidden item in the reflection. All she could make out, however, was the agent's back; his hands were concealed by the racks of clothing. _I need another angle_, she thought.

Going against Truewell's advice took a bit of courage to get through, but Jaime managed to stand up and walk over to the other side of the sitting area; Truewell stayed silent throughout. Here, Jaime was even more out of the sight line of the inside agent, but now had a clear view of his hands, albeit a twice-reflected one. He started to dig around in the pockets of the leather jacket, but that's all that Jaime could see. _Like I'm looking at a postage stamp from across the room, _Jaime thought.

_I can't make out anything. You need to use the zoom function in your kit,_ Truewell said.

Jaime almost jumped out of her skin. "I **hate** that you can see everything I see."

_I'm sorry, Jaime, but I really need to use it for right now, _Truewell said._ Did Mr. Kim teach you how to use the zoom?_

"No, he was too busy teaching me how to shoot people," Jaime said.

_Okay, here's a quick tutorial. The system can read the nerve impulses that your brain uses to change the focal length of the lens. It knows when you're trying to focus on something that's too small for you to see, and that activates the zoom._

"Yeah, yeah," Jaime said. "Tell me what to **do**."

_Just...try really hard to look at it, focus beyond the image itself. It's like one of those 3D posters: you just have to ignore your body telling you that you can't do it and do it._

"Got it," Jaime said. "Headache, here I come."

Jaime relaxed her vision slightly, calling back to hours of childhood where she'd make her eyes try to go a little cross-eyed to amuse baby Becca. The effect was subtle at first, magnifying the image gradually before Jaime realized that the system froze its progress as soon as she stopped telling it to go further. That in mind, she forced it, and the image raced towards her so quickly that her stomach took a backflip in her gut.

"Whoa!" Jaime exclaimed, involuntarily jerking her head a little; the bionic eye stayed at a grotesque zoom factor, now focused on the racks above the agent. Carefully, Jaime repositioned her head, using the vision from her normal eye to target the zoom lens.

_Concentrate on keeping your head steady,_ Truewell said. _The stabilization can only correct for so much before you're looking in two different directions at once. That would make you sick._

"Let's avoid that, yes," Jaime said.

_It has a cut-out now, _Truewell said. _The way it made you appear was a bit...obvious._

The agent pulled something out of the jacket, staring off into the distance seemingly without paying attention to his hand. "And the vomiting gives it away, too," Jaime said, and focused her zoomed-in eye on the agent's hand. Jaime didn't know what to expect, precisely, so the sight of a folded piece of paper was a mild surprise. It whipped open for a moment before the agent pocketed it, presumably to read it later.

"Damn it," Jaime whispered. "Didn't catch that."

_The recording did,_ Truewell said. _Great job, Jaime. I'm very impressed. Give me a moment on the note._

"Thanks," Jaime said. "Uh, Ruth?"

_Yes?_

Jaime hesitated for a moment. "How do I turn it **off**?"

_Oh! Sorry,_ Truewell said. Jaime heard the tapping of keys through the link. _Give me a second...okay, found it. Blink the eye three times._

Jaime blinked three times, not really expecting this to work right away; however, when she opened her eye again, all was seemingly back to normal. She shook her head, just to be sure. The agent returned to his post, none the wiser.

"Can I come out now?" Gracia asked from within the dressing room.

Jaime poked her head in to find Gracia sitting on the bench mounted to the back wall of the cabin, legs crossed and fiddling with a series of small clutches. She gave Gracia a smile. "Yes, it's safe now. And that outfit would be great for a nightclub, but probably a bit much for the dinner tonight."

Gracia gave Jaime a 'What planet **are** you from?' look. "What happened, anyway?" she asked.

"Umm, nothing you have to worry about," Jaime said, remembering Truewell's presence in her ear and returning to the federal agent look. "I've got it all under control."

"Great," Gracia said. "That's good to hear. Excellent. I'm going to pay for this and then we're leaving. Is that alright with you, Agent Baker?"

"Yes, that should be fine." Gracia stared at Jaime for a second before she caught on. "Oh! Sorry, I'll let you change."

Gracia rolled her eyes. "Thank you, Agent Baker."

Gracia closed the door again, leaving Jaime to step back, turn around and resume her watch.

_Processed the image from your kit,_ Truewell said._ Simple phrase, Sutter and Mason, I think it's an intersection. Does that mean anything to you?_

"Hmm, I have an idea." Jaime paused and thought about the itenerary. "It's on our route back. Thank you, Becca's window shopping addiction," she said. "I should let Caulfield know."

_Agreed, make the call,_ Truewell said.

"What about the - mole?" Jaime said. "Mole. Who came up with that slang, anyway?"

_No idea._

"One more mystery," Jaime muttered as she dialed the number on Caulfield's card.

* * *

Robert Melville's last known address looked exactly like the sort of place where one would live prior to being found shot dead in a field. It was an apartment block where the doors were old and the deadbolts new, with barking dogs and loud TVs providing the proper sense of ambiance. The shattering wood and shouts of "FBI!" and "SFPD!" Caulfield's raid team dubbed over the background noise were therefore unexpected, but nothing new. Her team at the apartment consisted of another special agent and whatever cops she'd been able to muster from the SFPD. The cops weren't news to the residents, but she could tell that they were definitely paying attention to her blue windbreaker. It was emblazoned with "FBI" in big, blocky yellow typeface, and as such it had a tendency to gather that sort of attention. Underneath it, she wore her blouse and a ballistic vest. Her partner had left his windbreaker and clip-on tie in the car, wearing his vest on top of a starched white dress shirt. The cops, of course, were all in uniform with their own vests to match.

The door yielded quickly enough, and they swept the apartment with Caulfield up front. Her route took her all the way through the apartment's entry room into the kitchen before she stopped, scanning the room for threats. Calls of "Clear!" came from the other team members. Caulfield lowered her gun, experimentally at first, then took a few steps toward the fridge and holstered the pistol. One more look around, and it became obvious that the apartment was, indeed, empty.

"Clear!" Caulfield shouted, and turned to rejoin her team.

This was, of course, the appropriate moment for her cellphone to ring.

"Special Agent Caulfield speaking," she said, barely having pushed the right button on the phone to take the call.

"Yes, this is Jaime...Baker," Jaime said on the other end. "I've found a mole on your detail. He just took a message from a dead drop. I don't know his name, but he's got dark brown hair, five foot ten, wears a blue shirt under his jacket -"

"Okay, great," Caulfield said. _Ballard_, she thought. _Damn it._ "Are you still at the mall?"

"Yes," Jaime said.

"Okay," Caulfield said. "Can you take him aside without making a scene? We need that note. Call me back when you have it."

"Actually, I already know what it says," Jaime said. "Sutter and Mason. That's an intersection on our way back to the hotel."

"I know the one," Caulfield said. "What did you do to Agent Ballard?"

"Nothing!" Jaime said. "I just...I read it standing close to him. He didn't notice."

Caulfield's eyebrow went up reflexively. "Okay. Thank you for the heads up, good job, keep it quiet from here out. I'll call ahead to the hotel - we'll confront him there, together."

"And what if Agent Ballard - um, what if he - makes a wrong move?"

"Then you step in and stop him," Caulfield said. "You've got my agents with you. They're under your authority, so use them. I'll look into that intersection once we're done here. Don't ride back to the hotel until I give the all-clear."

"Gotcha," Jaime said. "I'll...maybe we can get lunch while we wait."

"Do that. I'll call you back in thirty. Oh, and Jaime? Thanks for probably saving my ass."

"No problem, Sandra - err, Agent Caulfield, this felt good."

Caulfield hung up. Sitting on the intersection might have deterred whatever it was they had planned, but it also might have just gotten a lot of agents killed, and it wouldn't help stop them from attacking in the first place. Caulfield knew she had to find something more concrete, something that would let her cut off their plans before they had a chance to strike - whoever "they" were. Since this was her only lead, she hoped that whatever it could be was staring her in the face. Walking through the house, it was obvious that only three rooms were used: the entry room contained a sagging green sofa with stains and spots and a cheap TV, one bedroom, insofar as a mattress thrown on the floor and draped with a sheet and a blanket could be called a bed, and the kitchen. Judging by the grease and sauce splatters on the countertop, the microwave saw far more use than the stove ever did, and aside from a newspaper on the table and the refrigerator, even the kitchen was threadbare. A clock on the counter, and a curious yellowed plastic device next to the phone.

Taking a closer look, Caulfield needed a moment to even realize that Melville had, for some reason, purchased an old Rolodex. The organizer still had the paper price sticker on the front from whatever flea market he had found it in, and the once pristine cardstock showed creases and frayed edges. Like many Rolodexes, it was sadly empty. This one only contained eight cards: six from various local takeout and delivery restaurants, one pink card from what looked like an escort service, and a scrap of paper with an address written in pencil. She plucked it out of the Rolodex and looked at it. _602 Mason Street._ Her eyes narrowed in suspicion at the scrap of paper.

"No," she said to herself. "He couldn't have been that stupid." She pulled her radio off her belt. "Agent Sandra Caulfield, I need a location check on an address. 602 Mason Street, give me the nearest intersection."

"_602 Mason Street is on the corner of Sutter and Mason, Agent Caulfield,_" the radio squawked back.

"Okay, maybe he **was** that stupid."

She marched back into the entry room, where the SFPD crime scene team was just setting up. They had brought their field kits with them and were prepared to go over the whole apartment with the figurative fine-toothed comb. She waved the other FBI agent over.

"I think we have an address for a potential ambush," she said. "Get me SWAT rolling to a block away from the corner of Sutter and Mason. I'll call for a warrant on the way."

"You got it," the agent said. "What about the Valdez girl?"

"She's safe for now," Caulfield said.

* * *

Special Agent Nick Eaton waited for Pope inside Valdez's rather sprawling bedroom; the desk had been moved from the far corner to the center of the room and provided with three chairs. Pope had picked this place for the interviews: it was convenient, quiet, had limited access and, for one reason or another, more sound insulation than the other rooms in the suite. Eaton didn't like the implications of that last one.

The door opened and Pope entered, quickly shutting the door behind him again. His black polo shirt and low-profile cargo pants gave him a markedly different aura than the other FBI agents. The implication was clear: outside forces had been brought into play. The collection of bulging file folders tucked under his right arm drew Eaton's attention and held it until Pope put it down onto the desk, taking a few seconds to straighten the stack up a little. All the while, Pope didn't make eye contact with him.

"Who's first on your list?" Pope asked, in the same kind of vaguely disinterested tone he'd use to ask for the daily special in a greasy spoon.

"Well, one second." Eaton took a step towards Pope. "What's the game plan, here? Special Agent Caulfield was clear that we're going to follow FBI regulations here, not...where ever it is that you're from, and I agree."

"United States Army, Criminal Investigation Command," Pope replied reflexively. "And you would, of course."

"All the more reason for you to tell me what you're planning on doing. UCMJ's very different from federal law," Eaton said, and picked up one of the folders from Pope's stack to thumb through it. "If we **do** find a mole, we have to do this right - if we're going to put him away."

_Ah, the rulebook type_, Pope thought. "I'm well aware of that, Agent Eaton," Pope said. He stood up straight, and his eyes met Eaton's. The agent felt a need to look somewhere else, but managed to hold his glance. "My **plan** is to ask your colleagues questions until we find the truth. I think there is a good chance that some of your fellow agents may see you as being more sympathetic to their situation - maybe we can play off that." Pope's face wore a thin smile. "I'm sure we'll work together well."

Eaton slowly nodded. "Yeah, me too." After a second of the two men staring at each other, Eaton walked towards the door. "Who do you want first?"

"Barrett," Pope said. "That's the first name on **my** list."

Eaton cracked the door open. "Hey, Mike. Could you come in here for a bit?"

* * *

Mike Barrett sat opposite Pope and Eaton, looking at the stack of file folders. Barrett was in his mid-40s, clean-shaven and sober-looking. Pope knew his type well; D.C. seemed to spawn them by the thousands. The veteran Berkut operative looked at him, trying to capture his gaze, but Barrett's eyes only briefly flicked up before going back to look at other things. Pope thought that boded well.

"Interview with Special Agent Mike Barrett, one oh three PM, June 20th 2008," Pope said, making a minimalist show of activating a digital voice recorder and placing it on the desk. "Agent Barrett, I am Antonio Pope, I believe you are familiar with Agent Nicholas Eaton?"

"I am," Barrett said.

"Before we begin," Pope asked, "is there anything you would like to say for the record?"

"No, Sir."

"Good," Pope said. "On the evening of the 19th, at or around seven twenty-five PM, Mr. Diego Valdez left his hotel room. He told his daughter that it was for a business dinner, but there is no corresponding entry in the logbook and no escort assigned. He hasn't been seen since." Pope looked back to Barrett, waiting for a reaction.

"Yes..." Barrett said.

"What, exactly, were you doing at the time that Valdez was leaving the hotel?" Eaton asked, crossing his arms.

"Swipecard logs show you outside of the hotel room at the time," Pope said, throwing a quick glance at the file stack.

"I was getting myself a Coke," Barrett said, looking at Pope. "Nothing wrong with that."

"Except that there is." Eaton leaned forward. "You're supposed to order in whatever you want, the FBI foots the bill for room service for a reason. Why did you leave your post?"

"Look, I know," Barrett said. "But have you actually tried the damn room service here? They can get a mignon to the suite in ten minutes, but if they get **us** a Coke, it's got to be Christmas. So what? I just grabbed a can from the machine, everyone does it, I just got caught out when I did it while Mr. Valdez decided to take a walk."

"That's a pretty unfortunate coincidence for you, Mike," Eaton said.

"Was it a can or a bottle of Coke?" Pope asked.

"Uh, a can," Barrett said. "Why?"

"Which machine did you use?" Pope said.

"The one...on the other side of the floor," Barrett said. "Look, I just got the can of Coke and then I went right back to the room."

Eaton sat up straighter in his seat and furrowed his brow. "If we were to print all the machines on this floor, would we find your prints on...any of them? Mike?"

"Of course, I mean, I - I've gotten cans before, I didn't think anyone would really notice."

Pope smiled in a way that made both Eaton and Barrett fall silent.

"Mr. Valdez was noticed missing early in the morning," Pope said. "Nobody's been in and out of this suite since then without approval from the agents. That includes room service. I counted three trashbins in the suite when I walked it. In which one are we going to find the can, Agent Barrett? I assume you've finished it by now."

"I - I don't know, I don't remember, the one - I don't know, I just tossed it!" Barrett protested.

"I've given you every chance to tell me the truth, Agent Barrett," Pope said. "Do you wish to talk to someone else **somewhere** else?"

Eaton's head snapped to the side, his eyes wide at Pope's implication. "What do you mean, somewhere else?"

"Mr. Valdez is privy to confidential information regarding the United States military," Pope said. "Any amount of collusion in his disappearance will be considered military espionage -"

"Wait just a second," Eaton shouted, getting up out of his chair. "This is a federal investigation, and the FBI will not stand for having one of its agents taken away to whatever location you have in mind -"

"- for which I am duly authorized by the Secretary of Defense to detain any and all personnel I believe connected to the case for as long as it is necessary to extract information on the whereabouts of Mr. Valdez. This supersedes the FBI's interest in merely pursuing an internal investigation of their agents. Sit down, Agent Eaton."

"I will **not** -"

"Yes you **will**," Pope said, never taking his eyes off Barrett. "Agent Barrett, are you aware of any cases where an FBI agent was detained in a military holding facility for espionage and subsequently rehabilitated and released?" His eyes narrowed. "Because I am not. You may wish to start writing a letter to your family. I'm afraid I can't authorize a live phone call due to the critical nature of the case."

"**Stop** this line of questioning, right now," Eaton said. "If you do _anything_ to Agent Barrett, I will report this to Caulfield and -"

"You will do no such thing, Agent Eaton," Pope finished for him. "Anything that's said in this room is now protected as a matter of national security, and if you breathe a word of this to anyone - Agent Caulfield, your priest, **anyone** - you will be joining Agent Barrett. Is that clear?" Pope looked at Eaton. "Sit down, Agent."

Eaton looked at Pope, then to Barrett - however shocked Eaton imagined himself looking, Barrett clearly had it worse, with all color drained from his face and his left hand wrapped around the chair's armrest in a death grip. He seemed too tense to even breathe.

"I repeat my previous question," Pope said. "Do you wish to talk to someone else, somewhere else? Or are you going to tell me the truth now?"

"He...Valdez...he..." Barrett stuttered, trying to learn how to speak again. "I...got money. He paid me. He paid me ten thousand dollars to let him go outside."

"For what purpose?" Pope asked.

"He didn't -"

"You risked your career without even knowing where he was going?" Pope said.

"A strip club!" Barrett blurted out. "Okay? He said he was gonna go to a club, and he didn't want any suits hanging on him, or for anyone to know! Okay? That's what he said. I didn't fucking ask what color thong he likes best, alright? That's all I know! I unlocked the elevator for him and he was off."

"Did he name the establishment he was going to visit?" Pope asked indifferently.

"No! No, that's all he told me, I swear to God! I didn't even really know the guy, okay?"

"Interview concludes, one fifteen PM," Pope said, and switched the recorder off. "Agent Barrett, you may wish to consider consulting a lawyer." He stood up and turned to Eaton. "Thank you for your help, Agent Eaton. He's all yours."

* * *

Down in the crowded back parking lot of the Fairmont, Eaton put the handcuffed Agent Barrett into the back of an unmarked FBI cruiser. Once the cruiser was sent on its way with a quick knock on the roof, Eaton took a surreptitious look around the lot. The chaos of earlier had settled down, temporary shades covering folding tables from various agencies, manned by bored-looking agents. With Pope nowhere to be seen, Eaton pulled out his cell phone and dialed Caulfield as he walked back towards the rear elevator.

Caulfield's phone started ringing as he pressed the button to return to the suite. The elevator doors stayed open for five more seconds - long enough for Pope to appear as if from thin air, step into the elevator cab and give Eaton his nicest smile.

"What are you -" Eaton began, but Pope cut him off.

"National security," Pope said, and left it at that, as if he had heard the click from Caulfield taking the call on the other end of the line.

"Uh, yeah, this is Eaton, Agent Caulfield." He gave Pope a sideways glance and wiped a bit of sweat off of his brow. The elevator had suddenly become uncomfortably hot for the agent. "I've got some news for you. We found how Valdez got out."

Pope said nothing.

"Yeah, it was Barrett," Eaton said. "Yeah. Yeah, something like that, only in actual cash. No, that's all." There was a nervous pause where Eaton gave Pope a glance. "No. No, ma'am, everything's fine. He's...he was fine." Another pause. "Yes. Thank you, Agent Caulfield." He turned to Pope and held out the phone. "She wants to talk to you."

"Thank you, Agent Eaton," Pope said, took the phone from his hand and raised it to his ear. "Pope speaking. What's on your mind, Sandra?"

"What did you do, Pope?" Caulfield demanded. "Tell me we can still prosecute Barrett. Tell me you didn't already put my ass in a sling for bringing you here."

Pope recognized that tone of voice. He had heard it a lot before Caulfield bailed out of the Army for the FBI. "I asked Barrett some questions, found a hole in his story and pressed him until he told me what he knew. I have a recording, I'm sure he'll sign a full testimony. So - how's your search going? Anything I should know?"

"We're pursuing a lead now, some kind of ambush," Caulfield said. "What did you say to Barrett and Eaton? What did you tell them?"

"Excuse me, Sandra - you're asking what I told Agent Eaton?" Pope said, glancing at the junior agent next to him. "That he did a fine job supporting me."

"Don't give me that crap, he sounds scared shitless. **What** did you **tell him**?"

"Sandra, there's no need to shout," Pope said. "Like I said, if you want to review the recording, I'll be glad to send you a copy, but don't you have bigger problems right now?" Pope asked. "Or maybe it's just the same old problem."

"Oh, I'm **certain** it's the same old problem," Caulfield shot back. "And I suppose that tape won't have any gaps in it, right?" Pope knew Caulfield well enough to hear her fuming on the other end of the line. "**Fine**. We will discuss this with Bledsoe later, Pope. Can you at least follow the law from now on?"

"Of course. You take care now, Sandra. I look forward to the conference."

Pope ended the call, then handed the phone back to Eaton. When he spoke, his gaze was straight ahead, as if Eaton was just the audience for a performance.

"Agent Caulfield isn't doing you or Mr. Valdez any favors by being suspicious of me," Pope said. "You're sidetracked from the investigation because you're busy watching me. That makes it hard for both of us to do our jobs."

Eaton said nothing. Pope could feel his frustration, in almost the same way that Caulfield pouted at him. _It must be something that rubbed off_, Pope thought.

"I get it, you're pissed at me," Pope said. "The feeling will pass. The job is what's important. There are a few loose ends we need to look at - why did Valdez keep such a large amount of money around, where did he get it, why did he choose Barrett - but we can assume the strip club story is not worth another wild goose chase. I'll go visit the site of the shootout - it's the last known location of Mr. Valdez, after all. Feel free to pick one of my other leads and run with it, if you still want to contribute something."

Eaton remained silent.

"Silence won't save you," Pope said as the elevator doors pinged open. "Results will."

* * *

Caulfield pulled her FBI SUV up at 602 Mason Street; with no curb left unclaimed, double-parking was the only option. Fortunately, a red signal at the intersection behind them gave her just enough time to climb out of the car with the SWAT team. The other FBI agent took the driver's seat; Caulfield tersely instructed him to get the intersection blocked off ASAP. That settled, she and the SWAT team headed for the small apartment house, drawing more than a few looks from pedestrians. _Gotta be quick, _she thought to herself. At least the raid started off on the right foot: no obvious lookouts, front door unlocked. Caulfield hoped that luck would hold out. She led the SWAT team up the staircase to the third-floor apartment from Bob Melville's notes. This time, the team had broken out a few of their heavier toys in expectation of resistance. One of them had been graced with the dubious honor of carrying the team's shotgun and was busy feeding it a set of lockbuster shells; another one carried a door ram the same way a businessman might handle an attache case.

Caulfield had put herself right at the front of their formation, and so she took up position just to the left of the apartment door. The cop with the shotgun was next to her, ready to shoot out the lock and hinges; the man with the ram took position on the other side of the door. Everybody else formed a neat row behind her. Caulfield took a deep breath, checked her gun one last time, then gave the nod to the cop with the ram across from her.

* * *

Inside the apartment, John Friar fought the urge to get some more sleep. It was days like this that made him really hate working for Richard Earlmeyer - pulled out of bed before noon, handed a big gun and told to do something stupid. Yet, here he was, sitting in this thing the boss laughingly described as an "ambush position", with a cup of cold black coffee in his right hand and his eyes focusing on something that was close to but not quite the whiteboard in front of him. Why couldn't they ever break into apartments that had some creamer?

"So," Zach Costapopoulis said, standing next to the whiteboard and the crude schematic of the nearby intersection drawn on it. He looked at the assembled troupe of mercenaries, all of whom in varying states of not giving a shit, and tapped his finger on the whiteboard, as if he expected them to pay rapt attention. "Any questions?"

"This is retarded," John said, earning a few nods. "How the fuck does he expect us to pull this off?"

"What's your problem?" Zach asked. "They'll never know what hit 'em, we just move fast and shoot the fuckers, pull the girl out, then we scramble..."

"Uh huh, and the part where we fucking kill FBI agents doesn't make you think that this is a bad fucking idea?" John said. "Like, literally retarded. I'm not spending the rest of my fucking life in Venezuela just because Earlmeyer fucked up -"

"Oh, great, here's our ideas man again!" Zach said, throwing up his hands. "You got a solution? You got a plan, huh? Fucking Venezuela's better than being fucking dead, that's what I'm thinking! If you like being dead so much, well guess what, you're gonna pull her out! How do you feel about getting to be the guy who gets his face shot off by her bodyguards, huh? Would you like that? I can arrange that, pal, just say the fucking word."

"Fuck you," John said. "Just...fuck you."

"Anybody else?" Zach asked, challenging the room. "Questions? Comments? Sudden flaring up of being a whiny bitch? No? Great!"

"Whatever," John said.

John raised the cup of cold coffee to his mouth. In the middle of his sip, the door behind him burst open, blowing split ends of wood off his back and into his coffee. The cup, now forgotten, dropped to the floor in slow motion as John, Zach and the rest of the triggermen reached for their weapons. Clattering metal rolled across the floor to the corners of the room, and the whole room erupted in light and sound. John remembered from basic that you need to close your eyes and open your mouth if you get hit by a flash grenade, and that let him keep his wits about him. Of course, closing your eyes with a SWAT team barreling towards him kept him from doing anything other than hitting the floor knees-first and putting his hands behind his head. Before the others could shake the afterimage of the flash grenade out of their ears, John and half of the others were already face-down on the floor, hands zip-tied behind their backs. _Fuck,_ John thought. _Ain't this just fucking perfect._

"Listen up!" one of them shouted. John looked up; some blond bitch with "FBI" on her jacket was walking from person to person and showing them all the picture of the Valdez girl. "Who wanted you to grab her? First one to talk is the only one to get a deal, so you'd better start talking now!" No one said a word - not much of a surprise to John. "Fine! If you feel like talking, tell them to call Special Agent Sandra Caulfield when you're in lockup. Search them and take them to booking."

One of the cops then copped a feel while searching John and hauled him to his feet. One by one, they were pulled out of the room and lead downstairs. As John was walked out of the hallway, the FBI bitch was standing by the staircase, talking to some other Fed.

John leaned over to her as he was lead past. "Hey, slow down." She nodded to the cop leading him out. "I'll talk if you can get this shit knocked down a few years."

She looked at John and gave him that penetrating look cops seem to just know how to do. John hated that look. "Fine. Larson, put him in the back of my SUV."

Downstairs, it looked like half the SFPD had shown up to the raid; so much for the wisdom of putting everyone inside the room for that bullshit "mission brief" without posting lookouts. John was lead past cop cars and a row of wagons to a black SUV. The SWAT cop opened the door and shoved John inside, then shut and locked the door. He settled down into the seat and closed his eyes. _Fuck Earlmeyer. I'm gonna take care of number one. He wants the bitch, he can get her himself.

* * *

_

It was not a good day to be a mercenary working for Richard Earlmeyer; this went double for the one forced against the wall of Earlmeyer's office by the man himself, with a pistol pressed against his temple.

"Is everyone on my payroll fucking retarded?" Earlmeyer shouted, pressing his elbow against the man's throat. "How **the fuck** did the Feds find out?"

"I...I don't know, Sir," the mercenary stuttered.

"You don't know. Of course you don't know. If you **did**, you'd be out there fixing this shit!"

Earlmeyer relented - elbow off throat, pistol lowered - and the merc slid down against the wall, his knees having buckled from an all-too-close brush with being executed.

"Let's think this through," Earlmeyer muttered. "Let's be fucking logical about this for a second!"

He paced the room; the merc still sat against the wall, trying not to draw his boss's attention and/or ire again.

"We don't have the daughter. Out of our reach. Forget her for the moment. But Daddy doesn't know that, does he? He's on the run, he can't check in with her, he's working off how things were yesterday - and what we tell him. Right?"

The mercenary nodded; Earlmeyer glanced at him long enough to catch it, then went off on his monologue again.

"Now he's a troublemaker and he doesn't trust us, but he doesn't **know** we don't have her. He just doesn't. And he's too fucking yellow to play the odds. Not with his daughter. Not with sweet little Gracia fucking Valdez. No, he's got to act like we have her. And that means he's coming to the meet. Expects us to make a trade. It's fair, right? He gives us what we want, we give him his daughter, done, we're outta his life, he's out of our hair, we're fucking done! Right?"

The merc nodded again. Earlmeyer fixed him with a glare.

"I asked if I'm fucking right, you son of a bitch!"

"Yes, Sir! Absolutely right!"

"Good! So when he shows up - because he has to show up - he'll have to call our bluff. But he has to show up. Has to put the package on the table, go all-in. We fucking take the package, deliver it, and then we pull out of the country, let the heat die down a little. Mission fucking accomplished, everybody gets mojitos in San Non Extradito!"

"Yes, Sir. Good plan, Sir."

"Fuck you," Earlmeyer said. "Put together a plan for the grab. I want this done fucking right, get everyone you need and make damn sure you can handle it. I need that package. That means you need that package. Are you getting this?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Then get the fuck to it!" Earlmeyer shouted. "And change your fucking pants."

The mercenary skedaddled for the door while Earlmeyer turned to face his desk. It was a nice desk, covered with papers detailing his day-to-day business. He would have to give that up, let his supply lines rot and waste everyone's goodwill hiding out for a few months. But it wouldn't kill him, his suppliers would come back as they had before. And at the end of the day, that's what counted.

He placed his pistol on the desk, opened a drawer and grabbed a bottle of single malt whiskey from it. There was a glass on his desk, but he took a swig straight from the bottle, then set it down and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He looked at the wall where he had almost killed one of his men just a minute and sneered.

"Special Forces my ass," he muttered.

* * *

Behind the tinted front windows of the Walgreens, Becca stood concealed by the stacked rows of gumball machines, watching the intersection over the BART station below. Oscar hadn't replied to her last text yet, so she waited and watched for the two men and their haircuts to reappear. Her phone in hand and head poking out over the top of the machines, she waited for what she was sure was her tail, daring them to reappear so she could lose them again.

Her single-minded intensity at spotting her tail exposed Becca to other things, though. Behind her, one of the store's teenage male stockers approached the teenage girl staring out the front window. _Kinda hot,_ he thought, _for a weirdo_. Becca's attention was so captivated with watching for black SUVs, men in black suits, black helicopters or any other variety of signs of a black ops raid on the Walgreens that she didn't notice the boy's reflection.

"Err, excuse me, can I help you with something?" he asked.

She ignored him.

Store policy required him to ask again, and so he did, with a little more authority this time. "Excuse me, miss, can I help you?"

Again, no response from the girl. His attention and gaze drifted elsewhere as he tried to remember what the instructional video had told him to do next. "Are you...are you waiting for someone?" He nervously cleared his throat. "Like a boyfriend?"

Still more silence from the girl. _Why isn't she looking at me? Why is she ignoring me? Is she like a thief or something?_ "Hey, if you're waiting for someone," he started, and tapped the girl on the shoulder.

About a dozen thoughts went through Becca's mind the instant she felt someone tapping her from behind, none of them positive. She felt like she must have jumped fifteen feet straight up in the air before she was able to move again, and when she could, her gaze fell firmly on a very surprised teenager in a green smock. "_**What?**_" she demanded.

"...can I help - you?" the teenager stammered.

Becca tried to read his lips, but between his fear and poor enunciation, she couldn't make out what he said. "I'm deaf," she said while signing. "What do you _want?_"

The teen's eyes darted from side to side, struggling to find another employee. The training video had, for some nefarious reason, not addressed this situation. "I -" he sputtered, then simply said nothing, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then looked at her again. "Welcome to Walgreens," he said, this time speaking more slowly and much louder. Ah, the comfort of repetition. "Can I help you?"

Becca sighed and rolled her eyes when she felt the volume of his voice. "No." Lacking the time to lecture the guy about how speaking louder didn't make her less deaf, she flashed him a fake smile. "Thanks. Could you go away or something? I'm looking for someone."

"Okay," he said. It took him another second to turn around and start walking away.

Becca couldn't suppress another sigh and eye-roll as she returned to her watch. Fortunately, her phone vibrated again before the boy could find a manager and really make things difficult for her.

_Spotted your tail again. Better than I thought. You'll have to lose them in the BART station. I have eyes, I'll guide you every step of the way. Oscar._

Becca took a deep breath before composing her reply.

_Where are they? I don't see them._

_Opposite corner. They don't see you yet, but there's no way to get to the station without being seen. Ready to run? Oscar._

Becca thought hard about her situation. By herself, being guided by some mysterious person to meet about something that was almost certainly dangerous enough to put her in prison, if not get her killed. She had managed to avoid thinking about how dangerous what she was doing had become until that point, but as she spotted the black SUV parked across the intersection, the realization that this was no longer just an online data hunt, that she was now being followed by the same people who had put Jaime in danger, hit her square between the eyes. The thought that she really could get hurt or imprisoned or **killed** - it didn't settle well. _What are you doing here, Becca?_ she asked herself.

But the answer came easily. She remembered Jaime's face after she confronted her about her leaving in the middle of the night, that **look** of hopelessness, isolation and fear. It was the only reason Becca needed. She had to do this.

_Ready. First step?_

_Out the front door, down the stairs into the station, wait at the bottom. When you see them, head down to the platform._

_Alright. Phone will stay open, guide me._

Becca's eyes swept the plaza in front of the store. Leaving aside the big staircase / escalator combo heading down to the station and the bus station, there was preciously little on the plaza, and not much of a crowd either. They were going to see her the second she stepped out of the store - and even if they missed that, 75 feet of open ground to the stairs would give them plenty of second chances. Becca felt her heart speed up a little - God, would she actually have to run for it?

The front door next to her slid open; Becca's eyes darted to the side, and she saw a small group of teenage girls walk past her out of the store. Becca didn't think; she fell in, walking to their left and hoping it would hide her for a moment. By the time the girls noticed Becca beside them, she had already broken off and headed for the staircase, doing her best to walk quickly without sticking out too much. Still, she felt compelled to look over her shoulder, see if she could spot them. And spot them she did: the doors of the black SUV opened, and the two men from the last bus stop got out. She quickly turned her head, hoping that they hadn't seen her look at them.

Her cellphone vibrated. If she had looked at it, she would have seen the following message:

_They're going after you._

Becca ran. The stairs were just ahead now, anyway; she grabbed the handrail to make the turn and legged it down the stairs, rushing past a few other passengers. A glance at the station display showed a train - her train - arriving in two minutes. Her heart was pounding when she reached the bottom of the stairs. She grabbed her FastPass card from her pocket and turned around to look up the stairs. It took a few seconds, but the two pursuers appeared below the ceiling on the staircase, their large frames jostling other travellers out of the way. Becca swiped her card and shoved the rotating metal turnstile as fast as it would go. She popped out the other side and turned around as the turnstile locked shut again. One of her pursuers looked at her for an instant before dragging the other to the card machines. He shoved a man in a suit out of line and stabbed at the screen to buy a pass as quickly as he could. Becca's eyes returned to the arrivals sign; two minutes still remaining, more than enough time for them to get through.

Just as that realization came to her, Becca's phone buzzed again.

_End of the upper level, maintenance corridor on the left. Go into the room at the end and wait._

Her eyes scanned the upper level, looking for the corridor. She spotted it, but also saw something else: the light blue uniform of a transit cop, heading towards the stairs at the far end of the platform. In that split second, Becca weighed her options. _Dark hallway with no way out, or random transit cop? No choice there._ She texted one handed as she made her way towards the nearest set of stairs.

_no i got this_

Her phone buzzed back almost immediately, but Becca didn't have time to check whatever complaint Oscar had sent her. Down the stairs she ran, bobbing and weaving in between passengers, her messenger pulling at its straps.

* * *

"Jesus fuck, amigo, the tickets!" Paulito growled, his eyes locked on the target as she disappeared down the next set of stairs. McIntyre finally convinced the machine to take his wrinkled cash, and the two were off, shoving more people out of their way to the turnstile. Fortunately, the look on his face made the people he bumped aside strangely hesitant to call them assholes.

Tickets swiped and turnstile turned, the two of them hurried after Rebecca Sommers.

"She could go for the tracks!" McIntyre gasped as they ran down the stairs to the platform. Paulito didn't respond to that, busy as he was trying to find the girl again. They looked around their immediate surroundings, but the crowd building on the platform in anticipation of the incoming train made it hard to search very far. Paulito even tried jumping up to get a better view, but without a face to look at, the target looked like every other brown-haired woman on the platform.

McIntyre pushed his way to the edge of the crowd on the platform, and leaned out to get a glance down the line. At the far end of the platform, he spotted the Sommers kid. "Paulito! Over here!" he growled, and waved his partner over.

As Paulito shoved his way next to McIntyre, something completely unexpected happened. The Sommers kid leaned out, gave them the biggest shit-eating grin they'd ever seen, and waved at them. Paulito stopped dead in his tracks, holding McIntyre back in the process.

"Oh fuck," Paulito said.

"What?"

"We're made."

Standing next to the Sommers kid was a goddamned transit cop. And it wasn't by accident; the girl waved again, pointed at the cop and then turned and got his attention. Paulito almost dragged McIntyre with him behind the stairs, breaking the line of sight as quickly as possible.

"Fuck this shit," Paulito said. "We gotta bounce."

"What, you're just gonna lose her?" McIntyre said.

"Yep," Paulito said, reaching for his cell. "Go on lookout, I'm calling it in."

"Gotcha," McIntyre said. He tapped his elbow against the side of his jacket, feeling the reassuring weight of his gun. He really hoped things wouldn't get anywhere near that heated, but deep down, he was ready for it. Whatever it took.

Paulito heard the other end of the line pick up quickly; calls from field agents were routed directly to Berkut's operations room with little fuss.

"Operations," Truewell replied. "What's the situation?"

"The situation is we've been made," Paulito explained. "We're at 16th Street BART, and the brat's fucking playing with us. She's seen us. Possible third agency involvement. Please advise."

Truewell sighed on the other end of the line. Paulito rolled his eyes and mouthed _Bitch_ at McIntyre. "Do you know where she's going?" she asked.

"Berkeley library," Paulito replied. "We can stick with her, if we have to, but we'll have to stop playing nice."

"If you know where she's going, why did you risk getting made in the first place?" Truewell sniped, sounding even more annoyed than she already did.

"Our orders are to keep eyes on her at all times outside the apartment -"

"Get back in the car and just wait for her outside of the Goddamn library. **Maybe** you haven't blown the entire operation yet."

"Yes, Ma'am," Paulito replied. "Getting the fuck out, Ma'am."

Paulito snapped the phone closed before Truewell could lay more attitude on him; even in this outfit, he couldn't get away from getting bitched at for following orders. Goddamn Army.

"We're ghost, amigo," he said to McIntyre. "Come on."

"That fucking brat's gonna be the death of me," McIntyre said.

"If the brass doesn't get us first."

Having been advised to take their mission orders slightly less literally in favor of not getting into a shootout with local law enforcement, Becca's shadows made for the stairs, rushing back to their car. Becca caught a quick glimpse of them leaving and smiled to herself as the transit cop went back on his way.

Nobody took much notice of a woman in the middle of the platform, dressed in drab brown clothes with a dull red ballcap. Her eyes were wandering around the ground ahead of her, and her shoulders were slumped, as if the wait for her train had been just the cherry on top of a bad-as-ever day. In a small crowd of other passengers waiting for their train, she didn't stick out. Paulito and McIntyre hadn't tried to get past her, nor recognized her. Good for them. If they had come within arm's reach of Sara Corvus, they wouldn't have left the station alive.

* * *

_Tradecraft Commentary: _Entry Tactics

One of the most dangerous situations for law enforcement and military personnel to tackle is that of having to enter a building with hostile people inside. Therefore, a lot of thought and effort has gone into developing tactics and equipment to help with building entries. To understand why all of this is necessary, it helps to have an idea of why entries are so dangerous. First, a building can be understood as a defensive structure: it provides cover and concealment to the defenders. Hallways and doors make for natural chokepoints that are easy to defend. Furthermore, tight quarters restrict movement, which generally favors the defenders in a fight. The defenders also enjoy what can simply be called the home advantage: they know the building layout and can setup to defend or trap likely points of entry. When your only advantage as the attacker is that you can pick when to assault the building, you've got a problem.

(On a side note, this is why urban fighting is still incredibly deadly today and military forces prefer to either bypass or blow up fortified buildings. Not an option for cops, though.)

So, how do you get in? The first step is knowing what you're getting into. In a "civilized" setting, you may have time to plan your attack and access to building blueprints. Knowing the layout allows you to plan your approach, make predictions on where you may encounter resistance, and also to coordinate who does what. More up-to-date information can be provided by other residents of the building, your Mark 1 Mod 0 eyeballs and a whole range of technical gadgetry from the well-known (fiber-optic camera slipped under doors or through holes) to more sophisticated equipment (softball-sized remote-controlled recon drones). Once you have at least a rough idea of where the hostiles are, it's time to go in. Hope you have a team backing you up!

The most dangerous job, obviously, is to be the first guy through the door. This guy is the "pointman"; a piece of military slang coming from being the guy at the tip of a patrol formation, hence why you may hear someone going first for something referred to as "taking point". To speed up entry, the pointman should not be the guy who actually opens the door; someone else usually takes that job. The rest of the team will assemble behind the pointman and follow him inside; this formation is called "the stack", and assembling it is called "stacking up".

How do you open the door? Well, if you've got nothing better at hand, a good kick to the lock can open weaker doors quite quickly, though deadbolts and heavier locks will obviously resist this. Moving up from there, portable rams are simply heavy pieces of metal with handles at the side so they can be swung against the door - blunt, yes, but much more effective. Failing that, locks and door hinges can be shot out, though most firearms are not really suited to the task; ideally, you'll want a shotgun with so-called "doorbuster" shells. Basically, those are sacks of fine lead powder that maximize energy transfer to the target with minimal risk of penetration or ricochets. And if that's still not enough, well, military and specialized counter-terrorist units use a wide variety of explosive charges that are usually attached to the doorframe and will quickly open everything short of a safe vault. (This method of entry was most famously demonstrated by the SAS blowing out windows in their assault on the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980.) Going beyond that, explosive charges have been demonstrated that can blow man-sized holes in walls with minimal shrapnel generation - worth a thought if you suspect that the normal entrances are trapped or you simply have a deep-seated hatred of doors.

You may notice here that all of these methods focus on gaining entry quickly, sacrificing stealth. This is an essential part of entry tactics and is referred to as "violence of action" - the assault must be quick and rapidly cover the entire defended position to shock and overwhelm the defenders. To further suppress the defenders, less-lethal weapons may be deployed. Tear gas is available in hand-held canisters or shells ranging in size from shotgun to grenade launcher ammunition. Shotgun teargas shells will spray a single target with a burst of the irritant, while canisters and grenades will quickly fill an entire room. Tear gas is a skin irritant that attacks the eyes and mucous membranes, chiefly in the nose and the mouth. (Technically, it can also irritate other skin, but that's usually not significant.) Gas masks provide full protection, but improvised replacements - chemical safety goggles and a bandana covering mouth and nose - can be surprisingly effective, too. Furthermore, repeated exposure to tear gas can lessen the effects. Tear gas can linger for a few minutes and even spread, but takes a few seconds to really start filling a room and having an effect; for this reason, modern canisters and grenades are designed to spin in place as they spew gas, making them harder to pick up and throw away.

Another staple is the so-called flashbang, also referred to as flash/bang or flash grenade. Invented for and first used by the SAS, this grenade-like device has a delayed fuse that sets off a metal and oxidizer charge inside its metal casing. Magnesium is a common metal, due to the bright white light it gives off when burnt. This produces two effects, both of which can seriously impair anyone close to the device: an extremely bright flash of light and 170 decibels or more of sound. The flash of light will make people reflexively close their eyes after retinal overexposure - a common description of the effect is that looking at the flash will "freeze" the last thing you see in your field of vision until your eyes recover. The pressure shockwave is not just an extremely loud sound (sharp enough to cause a pain reaction in the human body), but will also interfere with the inner ear of anyone who's exposed to it, upsetting a person's balance. This last effect is frequently reported even by people who are not in the same room, but in an adjacent one. Still, the flashbang is not a 100% solution, either: ear protection can muffle the sound blast down to a less painful level, and keeping your mouth open will mitigate the overpressure effect on your inner ear somewhat. (The advice for resisting the flash of light boils down to "Don't look at it". Easier said then done, though.) To address these potential shortcomings, a newer less-lethal weapon called the sting grenade may be used - this functions more like a classic grenade, sending a cloud of rubber-coated balls out that strike the defender, in theory inflicting disabling amounts of pain while avoiding serious injury. In practice, sting grenades have proven less popular due to the fact that they have a small effective radius, are less useful against people wearing body armor or on drugs that suppress the sensation of pain, and not reusable. They are more popular in riot control and in prisons, where armor is less likely to be present. Flashbangs, in contrast, can just be topped up with a new fuse and flash powder. A final note on flashbangs: don't touch 'em. The metal case gets hot enough to cause burns, which has led to more than a few injuries in entries using them.

Okay, so you've suppressed the defenders and opened the door - what now? The pointman goes in, and the stack follows. Everyone has a destination in mind; the pointman usually goes straight ahead, and the people behind him branch to the sides. In breaches where many hostiles are suspected, it may go as far as everyone having a specific corner of the room to cover. The first guy into a room will do a quick visual sweep for threats - a common pattern is to do a Z-sweep, which means you scan the top half of your vision from left to right, then go diagonal down and scan the bottom from left to right. Note that the temptation exists to have your gun follow your eyes - this is bad for several reasons: one, it slows down your sweep, two, it limits your field of view, and three, it makes you more likely to accidentally shoot something. Note that Agent Caulfield gets that one wrong, too, so it's hardly a rare bad habit.

If nobody's in a room, you will get a call of "Clear!". This is always a judgment call between keeping the pace quick and being thorough, and also a good reason why you don't move everyone out of a room during the entry unless you really have to - there's too much potential for people who may be hiding inside the room to fall into your back as you advance. Controlling the path back to your entry point is vital. If you do encounter someone, you must make a very quick decision: are they, right now, a direct, active threat to you or to anyone else? If they are, shooting them is necessary, but if they're in any way staggered, now's the time to shout at them. Get everybody down on the floor as quickly as possible - and we do mean everyone. You can sort the bad guys from the hostages later. If the idea of having a bunch of heavily-armed people in black tactical gear aiming weapons at everyone in your living room and screaming to get down terrifies you, then you've figured out what this approach accomplishes: you're too shocked to fight back, a state in which you are also more likely to comply with the shouted orders. It's rough, but so far it's also the best way to minimize casualties on both sides.

Once the entire structure is secured, you can send in more people. On an entry, a medic should be standing by in case somebody does get shot; more people to help you secure all hostiles inside also help. The goal is to get everyone restrained and outside, where they can be searched in more detail, treated for injuries and identified. That gives you the breathing room to go through the building again and do a detailed search, but that's usually not the entry team's job. So, congratulations if you've made it through the most intense adrenaline rush of your life! Kick back and relax for a moment before you get the next call and do it again.


	6. Chapter 6

Hello, sports fans! Again, our apologies for the long production time - we ended up with, no joke, three times this much material, but in the end decided that we should pull together a strong chapter from what we have and keep working on the rest. It's not lost, though! You will hopefully see it turn up soon. (Soon's not a legally binding commitment to any actual schedule, is it? It's not? Phew.)

Today, because I know you're all just dying to get past the character development and story progress, our commentary will talk about guns. Lots of guns. Enjoy!

* * *

As the SUV with Gracia, Jaime, Agent Ballard and one other FBI agent pulled up inside the Westfield San Francisco Centre parking garage, the other SUV slammed to a stop in the police emergency space out front, and the remaining agents ran inside. Quickly selecting the nearest fashionable but mostly empty boutique outlet, the team of FBI agents flashed their badges and herded all of the customers and most of the staff out of the store, and left just enough staff to maintain appearances and not spook the mole into doing something desperate. Ballard still had his sidearm, after all, and if he twigged to what was about to happen, taking Gracia hostage or simply trying to shoot his way to freedom wasn't out of the question.

Jaime guided Gracia towards the store with the waiting agents out front, and once inside, they started to tighten the noose. Gracia was quickly led into the back by one of her FBI bodyguards, and before Ballard knew what had happened, he was surrounded by Jaime and the four other agents.

Ballard looked between the agents around him. "Hey, guys, what's going on?"

Jaime closed her eyes briefly and took a big breath. "Agent Ballard," she began, feeling a need to pat her pocket with the DSS badge inside. "I'm placing you under arrest." She met his gaze and could read the anger and fear building on his face, almost enough to make her recoil from him. After a second of silence, she continued. "Hand over your gun, please."

"Who died and made you chief, Baker?" Ballard said. "What the hell are you arresting me for?"

"Conspiracy to commit kidnapping," one of the other agents said. "We found the cell at Sutter and Mason, Ballard."

He might as well have said "You're screwed, all bets are off" to Ballard, because that's how Ballard reacted: he drew back his fist and made a swing for Jaime, as if getting past her would get him out of this situation. Jaime flinched back and brought up her left arm, deflecting the wild blow away from her head. Ballard attacked her like an unruly drunk, and she had plenty of experience with getting those out of her hair long enough for the bouncers to show up. To complete her one-two combo, her body rotated, throwing her right fist across her body and straight at Ballard's sneer.

While Berkut had turned her strength back down to her normal level, there really wasn't a way to make titanium-reinforced knuckles softer. Jaime's fist connected and snapped Ballard's head to the side. The impact seemed to take him off his feet for a moment, and he easily crumpled to the floor, forcing two agents to jump back lest he land on them. Jaime's fist seemed stuck in the air briefly while she figured out what she had done; Ballard, however, proceeded smoothly to the next scene in this mini-stage play, rolling on the floor and moaning in pain.

Jaime shook her hand in anticipation of pain that wasn't coming, and moved her bionic hand's fingers up and down, acutely aware that she couldn't actually_ feel_ them moving. She then took a knee next to Ballard's head. "You have the right to remain silent," Jaime said, and looked straight into Ballard's eyes, trying to be as intimidating as she could manage. "Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights?" She smiled as she finished reading Ballard his rights, thinking back to all of those cop shows she'd watched curled up with Becca on her sofa.

Ballard looked up at her in confusion, then blurted out something that sounded very much like "I bit my tongue, you bitch," if said by someone who had indeed just bit his own tongue.

The other agents also looked at Jaime like she had just grown a second head. "We'll take it from here, Agent Baker," one of them said, and three of them set to rolling Ballard over, applying a pair of handcuffs and hauling him off back to the SUV, whispering about Jaime's knockdown blow among each other all the way to the exit. The fourth left to join his colleague in guarding Gracia, leaving Jaime alone in the middle of the store and feeling, to quote the yet-to-be-uttered comment from Nathan in the debrief to follow, 'pretty badass'.

_Everything alright, Jaime?_ Truewell asked._ I didn't see the system activate from here._

"Didn't need it," Jaime replied. "I can handle drunks **and** idiots."

_Maybe we should look into recruiting more bartenders, then,_ Truewell said. _You didn't have to read him his Miranda rights, by the way._

Jaime frowned. "But that's how they do it on TV."

_You only need to read someone their Miranda rights when you question them in a custodial situation, _Truewell said. _It was a nice touch, though._

"Good to know." Jaime looked around the store; even the skeleton staff were nowhere to be seen, and Jaime felt a bit exposed. "So, uh, what now?"

_You should probably let Agent Caulfield know that you made the arrest. You can go to lunch after that._

"Hmm, lunch sounds good." Jaime rubbed her stomach, and turned towards the back room. "I could go for some food right now, actually. Talk to you later, Ruth."

* * *

Having left their black SUV parked in a police spot close to the Berkeley campus, Berkut operatives Paulito and McIntyre concluded their run for the campus center with taking position near the shrubbery of Memorial Glade, a central piece of green surrounded by the library buildings. It had the strangest effect of making Paulito wish he was back in Afghanistan, where observation of this nature could be done from a few hundred yards away through a set of field glasses. It was easier to be mentally prepared for taking fire from the Taliban than being caught hiding in the bushes on a college campus.

"Is she gonna take the bus?" McIntyre asked, scanning the handful of students waiting at the nearby bus stop.

"How the hell would I know?" Paulito replied. "She's not gonna walk all the way from the train station, is she?"

"This is turning into a proper clusterfuck," McIntyre said. "We should call in, ask what's up."

"You just volunteered, amigo," Paulito said. "Not dancing with the dragon again."

"Ah hell," McIntyre said. "Comes a time for every man..."

McIntyre reached beneath his jacket and emphatically past the holstered pistol hiding beneath it, producing a cell phone. A few button presses later, he held it against the side of his head and waited for the 'dragon' to pick up.

Truewell picked up after the first ring. "Status?"

"We are on site," McIntyre said. "And the girl ain't here. Do we have any information on the transit out here? Would be good if we knew when she's coming." Under his breath, he muttered "If she's coming."

"Transit cop reported over the radio that she boarded the BART Red Line towards the East Bay, so she should be arriving in the next five to ten minutes," Truewell answered.

"Five to ten minutes, copy. Minor snag, Ma'am, we didn't bring our student IDs. We can confirm the building, but after that we're going to lose her, unless we get creative."

"Do **not** attempt to follow her into the library," Truewell barked at McIntyre. "I don't know when you were last in a library, but you can't tail anyone with half a brain through the stacks. We have security camera access, I'll follow her through there. Just confirm when she enters the library and from what entrance, and be ready to reacquire her when she leaves."

"...we have camera access?" McIntyre said. "Hey, Paulito, we got cams inside."

"Fuck me," Paulito replied. "What's next, we task a Predator for her?"

"We've got it covered, Ma'am," McIntyre said. "Any change to tactics for the homeward stretch?"

"Keep her safe and in sight, that's all you need to worry about," Truewell said. "Call back when you've got eyes on her. Out." The line disconnected with a click.

"- and that would be our original orders, Ma'am," McInytre said into the dead line. "Need a buddy check, Paulito, is my head still on? Any superfluous openings in my behind?"

"Hair's a little singed, I think," Paulito replied without looking at him. "You pack a sandwich or something?"

"Yeah," McIntyre said. "It's in the car." The deeper implications of that statement took a few seconds to work their way through his brain. "...be back in fifteen," he said.

"Don't forget my water, amigo," Paulito said.

* * *

Leaving the bus behind, Becca jogged across the glade towards the concrete plaza in front of the Doe Library. She stopped on the front steps of the library, glancing around for any sign of her pursuers. The library's columns loomed large over her, and she slid into the alcove for the front door while her cell phone was retrieved from her back pocket.

_At library, think I lost them. Where are you?_

The reply came swiftly. _Checking the library. Wait on second floor, north reading room. Oscar_

Becca snapped her cell phone shut and took one last paranoid look across the plaza before walking through the front doors. The inside of the library was a familiar sight, with its white walls and the front desk to the left side of the small hallway. A campus police officer leaned against the desk, making small talk with the receptionist while he watched people going in and out. The thought of the officer being just a loud shout and a few seconds away took a bit of worry off of Becca's mind as she climbed the stairs up to the second floor.

The reading room was, as far as Becca could tell, completely devoid of people. In fact, hardly anyone seemed to be at the library that day, and that added just a tiny bit more apprehension to her emotional cocktail. She found a bench close to the north-facing windows and sat down, keeping her eyes on the entrance.

_Situation check,_ she thought to herself. _My sister's caught up in some sort of conspiracy. I'm meeting a mysterious stranger, alone. Two guys with buzzcuts followed me. Screaming for help feels like a good idea. What the hell happened to your life, Rebecca?_

The officer from downstairs walked past the doorway into the reading room at that point and poked his head in. He smiled at Becca, who gave him a quick reflexive smile in return, and continued on his route.

_Okay, that would have been a __**perfectly**__ acceptable time to say "Hey, I think that there's these guys outside that are waiting to snatch-and-grab me all extraordinary rendition style, could you take a look, and maybe hang around for my meeting with some random guy I met online?" _Becca shook her head. When had she walked onto a movie set? The entire day had felt surreal, but now it was officially out of control, careening at top speed down a rail that she didn't even know was there a few weeks ago. _Not the first time I've had this feeling,_ she thought, a grim look overcoming her face. _Not the first time at __**all**__._

* * *

Although the brevity of Becca's summer visits to her big sister's home had always precluded her from doing any substantial testing on the matter, she had long ago decided that Jaime made for the best pillow on the old couch. That was especially true when the two of them were simply watching TV in the evening without having to pay much attention to it. A Gilmore Girls rerun, then, made for the perfect snuggle setup, especially after a long day of unpacking, window shopping and filling notebooks.

"What are we doing tomorrow?" Becca asked, and unsnuggled herself into an upright position so she could read Jaime's answer.

"How about Golden Gate Park?" Jaime answered. "Dad would love some pictures."

Becca smiled. "Yes! We could go to the Exploratorium, too!"

"Okay, but we're skipping the gift shop," Jaime said.

Becca pretended to pout for a moment, then hugged Jaime. "Okay."

Suddenly, Jaime perked up and softly pushed Becca off her. Becca looked up at her face and caught her saying "...at the door."

"What's going on?" Becca asked.

Jaime looked down to face her. "There's someone at the door, Becca. I'll get it, you stay here, okay?"

"Okay."

Becca watched Jaime walk to the apartment's door at a faster than usual clip. As far as she knew, Jaime rarely, if ever, had any of her friends over, and she certainly hadn't told Becca that she was expecting someone. Even from the side, Becca picked up on the confusion on Jaime's face, and that made her uneasy, too.

Jaime opened the door, and Becca caught a glimpse of a police uniform. Her mind didn't process that right away, and while it seemed like Jaime talked to the officer for hours, it was only when she turned around and the officer followed her into the apartment that Becca caught the expression on her big sister's face. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her cheeks were coated with tears. She tried to speak to Becca, but her expression and sobbing gasps made it impossible for Becca to tell what she was trying to say, and her arms seemed too heavy to move from her side to sign.

Becca felt her guts turn into a twisted mess, and her throat tightened to choke out her questions. She hadn't heard it, but what else could it be? Her mind raced to the obvious conclusion even as she desperately tried to think of something, anything else. Why did she have to already know the answer?

Mom and Dad.

Becca stayed frozen until Jaime reached up and gently put her hands on Becca's shoulders. Becca strained her eyes, trying to read Jaime through her own tears.

"Becca..." Jaime said, fighting herself for every word. "Mom and Dad - there was an accident."

Jaime's head turned down slightly, and she clamped her eyes shut, squeezing a few more tears from them. After an eternity and a deep breath, she looked back up. "I'm so sorry..."

Even if Becca had been able to say anything, Jaime didn't give her the chance. Her big sister pulled her into a crushing hug and sobbed onto her shoulder. Becca embraced her in turn, holding on to what was suddenly the only thing she had left in the world. She couldn't hear Jaime crying, but she felt it, every jerk of her chest, every stuttering attempt to breathe. Becca forced her eyes to stay open, and finally her look came to rest on the cop, who was still standing close to the door. He stood there as Becca and Jaime held each other, only able to watch them grieve as Becca buried her face in Jaime's shoulder and cried.

* * *

Becca didn't remember exactly how that night went. She drifted between fitful sleep and being quietly awake, staring into the darkness. It was a relief when Jaime came into her room to wake her up early the next morning. They were barely able to talk at the breakfast table, and three hours in Jaime's car yielded maybe ten words between the two of them. Becca's eyes were on the road, watching the scenery fly past. There were trees and rocks and flowers, and at some point they rode with the Pacific on their side. It felt a little familiar, at least.

If the ride was a blur, then the next two weeks seemed to be a blur stuck on repeat. Their parents' house in Mendocino was far from a mansion, but it was filled with the memories of two generations of Sommers living there. Becca told time by how it was gradually emptied, stripped and cleaned. She never asked what Jaime did with all the things her parents owned; presumably she'd found some way to sell some of it, store a few mementos and to just plain get rid of the rest. Becca's room, too, went from lived-in to bare, as Jaime somehow worked the miracle of packing up her life - all thirteen years of it - into a few cardboard boxes.

The funeral came and with it a slightly stronger memory, lots of familiar faces without names expressing their concerns and condolences and offers of support. Becca spoke to none of them; she could barely be persuaded to talk to her friends from school now. She had started to actually dread the day when the house would be completely cleaned out, had gotten used to feeling like she was sleepwalking through days that didn't matter to anyone. But, as Jaime patiently explained, there simply was no way to keep living there, no jobs for her to take that would keep them both fed, and in the end, selling the house and taking the money simply seemed like the only rational decision. The last time Becca saw her childhood home, it was in the rearview mirror.

* * *

Two weeks later, Becca was dressed in the one dress Madeline Sommers made her daughter own and seated behind a table in Family Court. Next to her sat her attorney, the next table over seated the court investigator, and ahead of them, judge, stenographer and an interpreter for Becca shared the small space at and around the judge's bench. Her sister Jaime was seated at the witness stand, and although her eyes were mostly on the judge, she occasionally shot a reassuring look to Becca.

"Mr. Dickens," the judge said, "I will now give you the opportunity to question Miss Sommers on behalf of your client."

"Thank you, your honor." Becca's attorney said. He stood up and approached Jaime. Becca vaguely remembered him from the funeral; he was a friend of their parents, and had taken the case pro bono to help the siblings stay together. "Miss Sommers. Why don't you tell us a bit about what Becca's life with you is like during the summer?"

"She lives with me for most of the summer break," Jaime began, exhaling deeply to calm her nerves. Stick to the facts, keep it even, show the love. "She's got her own room at my place, and I take the time off from work so we can go out and see the sights. We often go to parks and museums around here. Sometimes I need to cover a shift at the library, and Becca comes along. She's good friends with my co-workers." Jaime smiled. "Sometimes, it's a bit of a struggle to convince her to leave the library again, actually. In the evenings, we work on some of her school projects or go watch a movie."

Becca's eyes flicked from her sister to the interpreter. She was used enough to Jaime speaking that she could follow her lips even at a bit of a distance, but Mr. Dickens was a stranger - and had his back toward her most of the time, too.

The attorney smiled. "Sounds like a lot of fun, Miss Sommers. But since Becca will be living with you full-time if you gain custody of her, how will you make your work schedule mesh with her school schedule during the year?"

"Oh, that's not a problem," Jaime said. "I'll cover the day shifts at the library, when Becca's in school. I've already talked to my colleagues and my boss, they're okay with that. Since I'm not in the front desk rotation, I can pretty much choose my hours, and take time off to pick Becca up and take her home."

"How about money? Raising a teenager is expensive, after all."

"I can squeeze a few more hours at the library, on occasion," Jaime said. "I'm sure I can make an occasional arrangement for Becca to spend the evening at a friend's home, if it comes to that." After a moment's deliberation, Jaime continued. "Also, the estate settlement of our parents came out to roughly 53,400 dollars, which we're saving to pay for Becca's college education. I have no outstanding debts and good credit. So, yes, I know that taking care of Becca full-time will be a bit of a financial burden, but I think it's one we can handle."

The attorney nods. "So, you'll be able to take time to take care of Becca, and money is already figured out. Do you have anything else to say to persuade the court to award custody to you, Miss Sommers?"

"I do," Jaime said. "I love my sister, and she's everything to me. I know I wouldn't have made it through those last few weeks without knowing that she's there, that I'm doing it for her. Nothing would make me happier than having her live with me. And I know - I **know** I can do this. I know I can take care of her. I know I can keep our family together. And I want nothing more than to be there for her and to make her happy."

The attorney nodded. "Thank you, Jaime."

As Jaime walked back into the gallery, their attorney turned to face the judge. "I hope that was enough to satisfy the court's concern about whether or not Miss Sommers is a fit guardian for her sister, your Honor."

"Yes, thank you for your questions, Mr. Dickens," the judge said. "Miss Sommers, you are released from the witness stand. You may take a seat with your sister." The judge looked over to the other table, where the court investigator waited her turn. "Miss Culver," the judge said, "the court ordered you to observe Rebecca Sommers living with her sister Jaime Sommers as well as researching Miss Sommers's background. Have you produced a report with your findings?"

"I have, your honor," the court investigator said, putting her hand on a copy of the report, a small stack of paper neatly arranged on her table.

"Well, I've read your report, and you conclude that granting Jaime Sommers guardianship over Rebecca Sommers is in the best interest of Rebecca Sommers. Is that correct?"

"That is correct, your honor," the court investigator replied.

"Very well," the judge said, then turned back to the Sommers's table. "Rebecca, I would like to ask you a question now." He waited for the interpreter to finish signing that.

Becca straightened up and looked at the judge. "Okay, your honor." She kept her signs small, focusing instead on speaking clearly.

The judge smiled at that. "Rebecca, by making your sister Jaime your guardian, she will be responsible for you until you are 18 years old. You will also live with your sister. Is that what you want?"

Becca nodded. "Yes. She's taken care of me for months before. She's the only person I know who really understands and cares about me like family."

"Good. Thank you, Rebecca, you can sit down."

The judge made a bit of a show of righting his glasses before he continued.

"Usually, we break for a moment at this point, but I'm not a big fan of keeping people in suspense." His eyes focused on Jaime. "Miss Jaime Sommers, the court grants your application to become the legal guardian of Rebecca Louise Sommers. Effective immediately, you are hereby granted the guardianship of the person of your sister, with all attendant benefits and responsibilities. Miss Culver will instruct you further when this hearing is over. Do you have any questions or objections regarding this ruling?"

Jaime resisted the urge to hug Becca and simply smiled at the judge as Becca latched onto her, her smile even wider than Jaime's. "No, your honor. Thank you."

"Very well then. This hearing is adjourned."

Everybody rose from their seats, finally giving the Sommers sisters the chance for a deep hug; Jaime hardly felt the attorney's hand landing on her shoulder for a congratulatory clap. Becca felt Jaime say something; she hugged her big sister a little tighter and whispered "I'll **never** leave you alone."

* * *

It was only the cold feeling of the table sapping the last bits of warmth from under her arms and the surprising sensation of a completely dry mouth that pulled Becca out of her memories and back to the present. She retrieved a water bottle from her messenger and took a long drink while wondering where this Oscar was. After all, she'd been there for who knows how many minutes now (just shy of ten, a quick check of her watch revealed), and unless Oscar was going to check every floor of the stacks, he should have been here by now.

When Becca glanced at her watch again, something moved on the edge of her vision, and her head turned up again. A person wearing a brown jacket and a red ballcap stood in the reading room's doorway; it took Becca a moment to realize it was a woman. She wasn't quite as tall as her sister, Becca observed, but even the loose jacket couldn't hide that she had broad shoulders and carried herself like an athlete. Eyes hidden behind a pair of shades, she seemed to look straight at Becca for a second, then made a hard left into the room, sticking close to the wall. Becca's unease rose a little - this wasn't what she had expected, but what were the chances someone with a red ballcap would walk into the meeting place now and **not** be Oscar? Becca swallowed her anxiety and followed the woman into the corner of the room.

Becca didn't know what to say - "Excuse me, are you Oscar?" seemed a bit silly, not to mention revealing if this was someone looking for them both - and the woman didn't open the conversation, either. Instead, she looked Becca up and down, then reached into the pocket of her jacket and retrieved her cellphone to hammer out a quick message. A few seconds later, Becca's phone vibrated in her hand.

"Feynman?" the woman asked. Becca looked at her for a moment, then checked her phone.

_It's me. Oscar_

Becca still had no idea what to say, so she just nodded. "Cool. So, uhh...I thought you would be, like, a fat sweaty guy in a red hat."

"Did you lose your tail?" the woman asked, looking behind as she spoke.

Becca only caught half of Oscar's last sentence. "Uh, Oscar, or whatever your name is, unless you know sign language, you have to look at me and speak clearly when you talk. I'm deaf."

Oscar looked at her for a moment, as if waiting for something. Then she brought her hands up and started to sign. "I didn't know you were deaf. You don't have an accent. I can sign." Her hands snapped quickly from one sign to the next with no hesitation. Textbook quality, but with no flow or rhythm.

"Yeah, it takes a lot of time and practice to stay that way." Becca looked around as Oscar continued scanning the room before returning her eyes to Oscar's hands. "Are we looking for someone in particular?"

"I am not too popular around the people that have your sister," Oscar signed. Or rather, Becca noted, Oscar signed all those individual words one after another. Each sign, by itself, was correct, but it lacked the larger context a native ASL signer would bring to her sentences.

_Finally, something I can talk about._ "Yeah, about that, who are these people?" Becca paused for a moment to let Oscar answer, but couldn't hold back the torrent of questions forming in her mind. "What do they want with Jaime? What have they done to her that's got her so afraid? What are they making her do? Why are they following me? Who are you and what do **you** want?"

Oscar's face twitched slightly. "One question after another," she signed. "You asked me about Jonas Bledsoe. I'm here to tell you what I know about him. If you want more than that, I need to know that I can trust you. I'm taking a big risk just meeting you."

Becca crossed her arms. This kind of adult condescension, she was familiar with. "And I'm not? In case you forgot, I had to dodge the goon squad on the way here. They probably don't even know that you're here, while they sure as Hell know that I lost them. I need to know that I can trust **you** before I go anywhere else." Oscar started to sign her response, but Becca cut her off. "Just stick with English and speak clearly, it's easier."

Oscar paused for a moment, then spoke out loud again. "It's risky for both of us," she said. "And trust has to start somewhere." She paused for a moment. "My real name is Sara Corvus. I...used to work for Jonas Bledsoe."

Becca extended her hand. "Nice to meet you, Sara Corvus, who used to work for Jonas Bledsoe. I'm Becca Sommers."

Corvus took the outstretched hand and grasped it with a very firm grip. Her hand felt cool. "We'll have more privacy in the stacks...Becca. Follow me."

* * *

Corvus led the way. She thought she'd done a good job at pretending to not know who she was meeting, but she hadn't been as convincing as she'd hoped. It was one thing to convince a teenage girl to meet her in a public place, quite another to figure out what she knew and size her up as a potentially useful asset, or as leverage. Corvus swallowed her guilty feelings; they didn't matter in the moment. At that moment, the assignment was to determine if the Sommers kid could be trusted with more knowledge, or was to be kept in her pocket for when the time was right.

And that assessment required Corvus to keep bending the truth, at least for now. Later, she could decide how much truth to tell Rebecca, and how she would get to find out.

* * *

Finding out that people are trying to kidnap you would put the damper on most everyone's enthusiasm for shopping, and it wasn't any different for Gracia Valdez. The only real argument in skipping straight to the "lunch" phase of the excursion was the choice of seating in the restaurant. Gracia championed the terrace in front of the restaurant, due to its more natural lighting and nice view of the rest of the mall interior. Jaime, however, unfairly brought up the kidnapping attempt as a motivation for sitting inside in the back of the restaurant, which would be far easier to secure. Jaime won the debate, though not without being hit by a momentary pout from her charge, a moment that couldn't help but remind Jaime of shopping with Becca.

At the table, Jaime and two FBI agents took a seat with Gracia, who gave the crowd of bodyguards around her a harsh look. "I do not think that your effectiveness will improve if you all sit here with me," Gracia huffed. Jaime shrugged at the other bodyguards, and they all stood up to give Gracia some space, but Gracia looked up at Jaime. "Wait, Agent Baker, you can stay."

Jaime grinned, and sat back down at the table. She picked at her fries for a moment before leaning forward. "Thanks for letting me sit with you."

Gracia tried to pass the gesture off like it was nothing. "I like having some conversation with lunch, and you did just foil an attempt to kidnap me." The dressing for her caesar salad sat on the side, waiting in vain for its call to action, while Jaime's burger and fries looked like a feast in comparison. "And you're a bit more interesting than I thought you'd be, Agent Baker."

"Kick-ass special agent action I can do, but I'm no good at the stuffed-shirt fed look," Jaime joked. "People have told me that I can look less than professional."

"I **was** expecting another stereotypical federal agent, to be honest," Gracia replied. "Have your FBI colleagues found out anything about my father?"

Jaime dropped her smile down a couple notches. "No, I'm sorry, Gracia."

Gracia took another bite and chewed for a second before she replied. "It is not your fault. I believe that you would tell me if you knew anything." Jaime nodded through another bite of burger as Gracia stabbed one more forkful of salad. "So, you mentioned that you have a younger sister?"

"I do," Jaime said. "She's about your age, too, and about as much of a handful."

"And she lives with your parents, then?" Gracia asked. "How often do you get to see her?"

Jaime looked embarrassed. "Ahh...every day. Our parents died a few years ago, and she lives with me."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Gracia said diplomatically. "I did not mean to pry."

"It's okay," Jamie replied, her smile making a comeback. "She's really smart, a genius, she's my closest friend, and every day with her is an adventure. I don't know what I'd do without her around."

Gracia cautiously returned the smile. "My mother always did want another child," she said. "I think it would be fun to have a little sister, or a big brother. Less lonely afternoons at home."

"You don't have friends over? Becca has Kate over all the time," Jamie said.

_Try to avoid name-dropping your actual family members when using a cover, please,_ Truewell's voice cut into Jaime's ear.

"My father's lifestyle isn't suited to making a lot of friends," Gracia said. "I keep in touch with my school friends in Spain, but it is not the same."

"No, it's not. I'm sorry, Gracia," Jaime said, and put her hand on Gracia's.

"Normally, my bodyguards are not allowed to touch me, Agent Baker." Gracia didn't move to remove Jaime's hand, though. "You do like apologizing for things that are not your fault, don't you?" After a moment, she laid down the fork in her other hand and put that on top of Jaime's. "Thank you for your kindness, Agent Baker. It is nice to have a bit of human contact with my personal security."

"Jaime, please, and you can call me any time," she said. She scribbled down her cell phone number on a napkin and passed it to Gracia.

"Oh, this is so inappropriate," Gracia giggled. "I think I might actually take you up on the offer - Jaime. At least, if you are knowledgeable about more things than throwing punches and appropriate evening wear."

Both Jaime and Gracia laughed at that, then Gracia stood up from the table. "I need a refill on my beverage, Jaime. I will be right back." One of the FBI bodyguards peeled off and followed Gracia to the soda fountain as she walked off.

_Please tell me that you did not just give your personal cell phone number to the protectee,_ Truewell asked.

"She's a lonely teenager with no friends and a father who's always busy," Jaime whispered. "She just needs someone to connect to."

_Yes, but you do not run a crisis hotline,_ Truewell replied. _Especially not on your private number. If you desperately want to cross that border, I can give you a burner number that won't be traced back to you._

"Maybe in a few weeks. Right now, I say screw your professional detachment." Jaime looked back towards the entrance to the restaurant to keep an eye on Gracia. "I can protect her **and** treat her like a human being instead of like a priceless artifact."

_There's a middle road between glass sculpture and adoptive little sister,_ Truewell said. _I'm glad your approach is working to win her over, Jaime, but I'm concerned that you're putting too much of your private life out there. What happens when someone looks up the number you gave her, for example?_

"It's not like you can't change the name on the number," Jaime shot back. "I just can't just protect her from being kidnapped and ignore how lonely she is, Ruth. Deal with it."

_I'll get Nathan on the number cleanup,_ Truewell said. _Ask me before giving out more of your real-life identity, please._

"Sure thing," Jaime said. "And thanks, Ruth."

_No problem. Stay safe, Jaime._

* * *

_Commentary: The Guns of Bionic Women Rebuilt, Part One_

Have you been missing the gun nerdery? If so, boy howdy do we have something for you. Here's a quick overview of the various pistols seen so far in the story, with one or two you haven't seen yet thrown in as a little treat. Without further ado: guns!

SIG P226R

Berkut's standard-issue sidearm is the latest version of the proven P226 design, a semi-automatic pistol chambered for the widespread 9mm Parabellum round. The P226 was one of the finalists in the XM9 competition to determine the new US Military standard sidearm in the 80s, where it lost to the Beretta 92F due to cost issues. (Although both pistols were priced similarly, Beretta ultimately delivered a cheaper package including cleaning supplies and two magazines.) The P226 still enjoyed a lot of success in police agencies and was adapted by some SOCOM units, most notably the Navy SEALs. The P226 predates the widespread adoption of polymer frames and is therefore somewhat heavier than more modern designs, but enjoys a reputation for durability and reliability. The -R version includes an accessory rail in front of the trigger guard to mount weapon lights and other attachments. All Berkut personnel are trained on this pistol and required to requalify with it quarterly.

SIG P239

This holdout pistol is issued to Berkut personnel on undercover assignments, where concealment is more important than raw firepower. Chambering the same 9mm round as its bigger cousin, the smaller size makes for harsher recoil and reduced accuracy, as well as a sharply reduced magazine capacity. Still, it's better than not having a gun at all.

FN Five-seveN

This pistol was designed to complement the FN P90, a "personal defense weapon" intended to replace pistols for rear-echelon personnel with a compact, easy-to-use submachine gun capable of penetrating body armor. The Five-seveN chambers the P90's proprietary 5.7mm round, resulting in a pistol with a large magazine capacity and very light recoil. However, confusion over the nature of the weapon's ammunition (civilian-legal hollowpoint rounds do not have above-average penetration; the armor-piercing rounds are only sold to law enforcement and military agencies) as well as the pricey nature of both the gun and the ammunition have made it less popular than more conventional guns on the market. Agent Finlayson had this gun on him when he tried to kill Jaime in the FBI building, though he didn't get to fire it.

Heckler & Koch P30

Heckler & Koch hit it big in the early 90s with the USP, the "Universal Self-loading Pistol" that spawned a bewildering amount of descendents and variants. However, ten years later, it was time to update the design and feel of these pistols as law enforcement agencies were again looking for new weapons. The first update of the USP in 9mm was the P2000, which failed to gain traction and was therefore shelved, but led directly to the P30, which had a somewhat warmer welcome. The P30 takes the USP's proven internals and puts them in a redesigned frame that is somewhat more compact and features such details as a swappable backstrap on the pistol grip to adapt the weapon for different hand sizes, as well as a factory Picatinny rail in front of the trigger guard. Although the P30 (and its bigger .45 ACP brother, the P45) has not had the impact of the USP, it has found some adherents. Sara Corvus notably carries a pair of these pistols, as her augmented body can easily handle aiming and firing both guns at the same time.

Wilson Combat X-TAC

The venerable 1911 has more than 100 years to its name and is still going strong as ever. Originally designed as a combat pistol, subsequent tinkering with the bountiful amount of 1911s on the market after the two world wars led to adapting the pistol for target shooting and competition use, as well as trying to modernize the pistol by enhancing its sights, modifying it to take a bigger double-stack magazine or modifying the chamber geometry. The debates over how to build a "proper" 1911 will probably never abate, but what is clear is that the pistol's popularity endures and many manufacturers try their hands at distinguishing themselves. Wilson Combat manufactures high-quality 1911 models, among other things, and one of them is the X-TAC, which features enhanced sights, a distinctive X-shaped checkering pattern on the slide for better grip and a host of other tuning details that add up to one pricy custom gun. Ideal, really, for a gun nerd like Richard Earlmeyer, for whom a weapon's looks and build quality are at least as important as how it shoots.

Rock Island Armory 1911A1-.45FS

By contrast, some purists prefer their 1911s to be built as close to the original military spec as possible, reasoning that such maladies as feeding problems really come from manufacturers tinkering with an original design they do not properly understand. The 1911 has the quirk that it uses a controlled feed mechanism that supports the cartridge at all times on its way during the reloading cycle; this requires a specific magazine geometry and only works properly with old-school round-nosed "ball" ammunition, thus making it one of the features many manufacturers have actively tried to circumvent. On the other hand, fans of the original design argue that this controlled feed is exactly what makes the 1911 such a reliable combat weapon, and that eliminating it adds a lot of potential sources of misfeeds and jams. Whatever one's personal opinion may be, the market for repro 1911s exists, and Rock Island Armory is one the firms that manufacture them. Decently priced, solid and no frills – a fitting personal sidearm for Jonas Bledsoe.

Glock 22

Gaston Glock's Glock 17 made quite a splash when it appeared on the market in 1982 as the winner of the Austrian military's search for a new sidearm. Being striker-fired instead of using a more conventional double action/single action setup, aggressively using polymers in its construction and featuring a slight edge in magazine capacity on the then-standard 15 rounds most 9mm pistols had, the Glock 17 quickly made a reputation for itself as a simple to use, utterly reliable weapon. Several law enforcement agencies adopted the Glock 17 straight away, but at the time, the FBI was knee-deep in its experiments with giving its agents a harder-hitting sidearm. The 10mm Auto cartridge was praised for its power, but that same power also made it difficult to handle for smaller shooters, and manufacturers were slow to introduce weapons that could properly deal with the cartridge, leading to such (in)famous experiments as the Bren Ten. After first downloading the 10mm Auto into a weaker version and then adopting a less powerful derivative, the .40 S&W, the FBI quickly went through a succession of issue weapons before finally settling on the Glock 22, a full-sized service pistol derived from the Model 17, but chambered in the FBI's favored .40 S&W. The Glock 22 has proven itself in the line of duty and remains standard academy issue today, a seemingly happy ending to the FBI's years-long search for a service sidearm.

Springfield Armory XD-9

Licensed from a Croatian design, the XD is Springfield Armory's entry into the polymer-frame, striker-fired pistol category. Often compared to the Glock line of pistols, the XD pistols feature similar styling and principle of operation, eliminating fiddly controls in favor of passive safeties. The XD is considered an okay pistol, if not particularly noteworthy. However, it caught attention on introduction for its then quite low price, making it a sleeper hit. Since then, Springfield Armory has brought the price more in line with comparable pistols. The XD-9 chambered in 9mm Parabellum equips most of Earlmeyer's henchmen.

Star Model 28 DA

Star is a Spanish firearms manufacturer that has been in continuous operation since 1905 and possesses a solid reputation for its pistols. The 28 DA was brought to market in 1980 and adapted as service pistol by many Spanish police agencies. The weapon itself is typical of its era, a self-loading double action pistol of all-steel construction with an action reminiscent of the classic Browning Hi-Power pistol. The 28 DA also inherited one of the Hi-Power's other quirks, a magazine safety that ensures the weapon cannot be fired without an inserted magazine. (This feature is commonly eliminated in customized Hi-Power pistols due to making that gun's trigger pull much heavier.) We don't know where Federico Valdez originally got his gun, but Diego took it with him to America to protect himself, and it looks like he'll have to use it.


	7. Chapter 7

Hello, sports fans! This time, we have a special treat for you - we're overjoyed to announce the launch of "Recycled", a side-story that delves into how Sara Corvus came to be the first bionic woman. Chapters for that will be published alongside the main stories - but only as the main stories "catch up" to the secrets and lies about her past. Wouldn't want to spoil you folks.

But on that note, we must add that we're classifying "Recycled" with a higher rating, as it contains more coarse language, violence and other unpleasantness. (It's not wall to wall f-bombs and gore, but it does need more headroom for that.) Although I don't think it'll be a problem for most of our readers, we'd like to stress that this makes "Recycled" optional reading that is not required to understand the main story - you won't have to read it to keep up. With an eye towards future readers, each chapter will also include a big fat disclaimer at the top about which chapter of the main stories you should be caught up to.

No commentary this chapter.

* * *

Following this 'Sara Corvus' person through the library, Becca started to wonder when the queasy feeling in her stomach would go away. Usually, she had what she took to be a solid read on people within the first few minutes of meeting them, but Sara didn't give her much to work with. She led Becca on a merry tour of the stacks, stopping occasionally to glance upward and shushing Becca's questions along the way. It took Becca a bit to realize that Sara was quite deliberately avoiding all the security cameras.

"What are you worried about?" Becca asked. "It's the campus library, not a prison break."

Sara said something, turned away from her; after a second, it seemed like she remembered that Becca was deaf and turned around to let her read her lips. "The last thing you want is Jonas Bledsoe finding out you met with me. Trust me on that."

"And you think he's gonna get us in here?" Becca raised an eyebrow. "Then where are we going?"

"A quieter section of the library," Sara said. "Less cameras, more escape routes. If your shadows show up, I need to disappear."

They rounded one more row of stacks, and found a break in the array of bookshelves containing the library standard prefab birch table and matching chairs, with power outlets and desk lamp mounted to the center of the table. Around them, the stacks rose almost to the ceiling, filling the air with the scent of slowly aging paper. Becca's eyes tried to see it as she thought Sara did, and noticed that the area also represented a camera blind spot and offered a chance to disappear into the library in almost any direction.

Sara also seemed pleased, and gave a little nod of approval. "Here's good," she said. "I'm sorry for the wandering. Experience has taught me to be...careful."

Becca dropped into a chair and looked up at Sara. "Hey, it's good training, right?"

Sara smirked. "Depends on what you're training for, I guess." Becca could read her face change slightly from something she was looking at. "I'll be back, act casual." With that, she suddenly turned around and walked off, disappearing into the stacks.

"Wait, where are you going?" Becca watched Sara walk away, but a few seconds later someone waved a hand in front of her. She whipped her head around to see...one of Jaime's friends from when she worked here. Becca struggled for the name, but couldn't remember despite immediately recognizing his face.

"Easy, Becster!" he joked. "I come in peace. How are you doing?"

"I'm good..." Becca theatrically grasped at the air. "...and I forget your name."

The man laughed. "Well, good thing I'm on duty, then, or this would be awkward." Becca's eyes dipped to the name badge hanging from the UC Berkeley lanyard around his neck. It read 'Shawn Wilsey'. "Listen, Becca, I'll get right to the point. Who's that woman you're walking around with? I've never seen her before and she's coming off pretty creepy. I almost called campus security on her until I saw you with her."

"Oh, that's Sara. She's around here, somewhere." Becca stood up and peered through the stacks. "Sara?"

Sara did answer the call a few seconds later, but it wasn't quite the woman Becca had walked with just a minute ago. She had her ballcap off, showing off tussled blonde hair; she wasn't wearing her shades anymore; and most bizarrely, she was holding a few books cradled in her arms and wearing a smile.

"Right here!" she said, then awkwardly shuffled her load of books into her left arm and extended her right arm for Shawn to shake. "Oh, hello! Sara Miller, nice to meet you!"

"Shawn Wilsey, pleasure's mine," Shawn replied flatly, shaking her hand. "She's your friend, Becca?"

Becca nodded. "Oh, yeah, we met online talking about...stuff. Jaime knows we're here, I've got my cell phone, we're all Stranger Danger safe here, Shawn. She's here to talk some shop with me about my robot stuff."

"That and reading up on my botany," Sara said with a smile, noticing Shawn's glances at her books.

Shawn looked a few seconds longer, the nodded. "Alright, cool. Just try walking around without the sunglasses next time, okay? We don't get too many people doing that here." He looked to Becca with a smile. "I mean, you stroll in here all serious face with a ballcap and shades, I'm gonna assume it's a campus shooting waiting to happen, I think my heart skipped a couple beats there. But, hey, cool."

"It's all good over here, Shawn." Becca returned his smile. "We're just gonna, you know, talk about our robot work. Thanks for looking out for me, though."

"Anytime. Gotta get back to work, through, sorry ladies. See ya, Becster." Sara and Becca watched Shawn turn to leave, but then he took a half step and pivoted back around on his heel, making a 'shoot from the hip' gesture at Becca with his right arm. "Oh! While I've got you here, you think you could sweet talk Jaime into coming in for an hour or two this weekend? Our classics section is an unholy mess and we've still got a slice of angel food cake from Jenny's b-day in the fridge for her if she says yes."

Becca was surprised for a moment and then nodded excitedly. "Yeah! Oh, wow, that's really cool. She'd love a chance to come back here and sort through the stacks for a day. She really misses you guys, I think she'd love it."

"Coolness. Alright, I'll leave you to it. Nice to see ya, Becca, nice to meet you, Sara."

Sara shook hands with Shawn again. "Take care," she said.

Shawn did indeed leave after that, walking along his way - no doubt off to clean up a desk in a reading room or to show someone how to access their university e-mail on the library computers. Becca breathed a sigh of relief, but looking up at Sara's face, she got to watch the friendly act disappear and the icy expression return.

"That should have gone smoother," Sara said. "If you want training for anything, Becca, we need to start with lying. It's a good thing that this Shawn person seems to trust you already."

Becca rolled her eyes and gave Sara a harsh look in return. "Yeesh, I know I'm not a good liar, but while we're critiquing each other's people skills, we need to get _you_ into manners camp."

"I don't have time to be nice," Sara replied.

"I don't have time to be nice," Becca repeated in an overly serious tone. "Just try it, I'm sure it'll make it easier to do whatever is you do when you're not helping me get into trouble."

Sara seemed to think about that for a while. "Fine. You need to train yourself to lie better, **please**."

Becca straightened up and gave Sara a big cheesy grin. "Better! Next week, proper place settings." She hauled her netbook out of her backpack and plugged it into the table. "So, what's the order of business? What's first?"

"First order of business is assuring that we're not surprised again." Sara stood up from the table. "I'll be right back, I just want to make sure that we're not ambushed by more of your...friends."

Becca watched Sara walk off **again**, leaving her alone in this supposedly super-secure spot between the bookshelves. Her expectations were completely subverted at this point - her dealings with the shadowy informant felt less dangerous and more...frustrating, really. She could feel herself standing on the edge of something huge, whatever it was, and having to wait for Sara to do whatever it was she was doing was getting more intolerable by the second. She just needed to _know_.

Still, Shawn's invitation for her sister was cool, at least. It hadn't been easy to see her sister so afraid of this Jonas Bledsoe, and although spending the last week away from him had helped, Becca knew that it was up to her to really make things better. She figured that spending more time here, working with her old friends, would really help Jaime brighten up. Jaime had loved working in the library even more than she did working as a teacher's assistant or gushing with Becca over her latest literary find, and the day she had to leave the library was almost as low as Becca had ever seen her sister.

* * *

At first, living with Jaime felt like a natural extension of Becca's usual summer stay. They were both content to leave the world outside of each other be and just spend time together. Jaime brought Becca to work with her in the UC Berkeley main library, where Becca dove head-first into the extensive collection of technical manuals. The first few weeks were rough, their shared time outside of Jaime's work sometimes spent grieving and comforting each other over the loss of their parents, but as July wore on, they helped each other recover and move on. When Becca's 14th birthday came, Jaime baked two pans of cupcakes and the sisters ate them until they both felt too ill to move. Later, Becca rolled over on the sofa and told Jaime that this was the best birthday she'd ever had, that Jaime was the best big sister in the whole world and that she didn't want anything else but her for her birthday. Jaime smiled and hugged Becca as tight as she could. As she turned back around to watch TV, Becca could feel Jaime's chest heaving up and down, but when Becca looked back up, the smile on her big sister's face couldn't have been wider.

Soon after, it was time for Jaime to return to college and Becca to register for her new high school. Social services helped place Becca in the right program, and much to Jaime's relief, Becca adapted quickly to her new surroundings - mostly. The brief stint in the deaf work group recommended by the social services counselor gained its briefness from Becca replacing the desktop background on the laptop of a, according to her, "spoiled and bratty" classmate with movie stills from Richie Rich three weeks running, which would always conveniently be reverted when the teacher was called over to look. Nothing could be proven either way, but after a face to face with Jaime, a unanimous agreement was reached to move Becca from the deaf group and into the advanced placement track in the high school to keep her occupied enough to stay out of trouble. She made a fast friend over a math partnered project in Kate Lee, which was a big load off of her big sister's mind. Hanging out with Kate, herself a bit of an outsider due to her own scientific ambitions, Becca felt like she had finally found someone other than her sister who could be trusted, who didn't see her as only smart or deaf.

Becca always knew that her sister kept herself busy. Aside from working extra hours in the library and taking classes herself, she still acted as teaching assistant (though in a somewhat reduced role) and took care of the household. Becca quickly learned how to help out where she could; her repertoire included both chores and helping Jaime proofread and edit her papers. In school, Becca flourished in the advanced placement program, showing her deft hand at the hard sciences. Having seen her aptitude for coding - gained from long nights spent with Dad's computer and nothing better to do - her new computer science teacher Adam Merchant pitched Becca about joining the school's robotics team in time to prepare for the winter break competition sponsored by UC Berkeley. Soon, Becca was knuckles-deep in lithium grease, servos and soldering, and Jaime became used to spending evenings watching TV with Becca coding by her side on her second-hand laptop. Two months of work with her project group paid off with the first prize, and Jaime took a rare day off from work to be there and cheer for her little sister. Afterwards, Becca spent half an hour showing Jaime how all the circuits and components of the robot worked, and by the end of the day, Becca knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life.

After that first semester, things settled into a comfortable routine. Jaime's college career continued at a similar pace to before - it was easy enough to use quiet hours in the library to study for her classes, and her TA work gave her plenty of opportunities to actually teach. Becca seemed to run on a boundless source of energy, pursuing her newest ambition with the same fervor as her burgeoning friendship with Kate. She kept up with her studies and turned in good grades, but her heart was clearly dedicated to her new obsession - and meeting with the people who shared her passion. When Becca approached CalSci's robotics team online with earnest questions, she was delighted to get straight answers back; soon, she was virtually hanging out with professors twenty years her senior, talking shop and making connections.

Summer break brought a bittersweet feeling; a year had gone by after the death of her parents, and Becca looked back at the time she had spent with her sister and her new friends since then. Somehow, life had simply gone on, and had even improved, and she felt guilty about that. Jaime and Becca drove up to their hometown and visited their parents' grave, and while they were up there, Becca asked Jaime if what she was feeling was all right, and Jaime told her that their parents would be nothing but happy for how well things had turned out for their girls. Becca closed her eyes and embraced her sister, finally feeling like she could move on. Becca and Jaime took those feelings of closure and returned to their life together. The two sisters felt renewed and closer together than ever, each helping the other with their studies and sharing the duties of the house.

Still, it somehow seemed that no matter how much Becca helped her sister, there was always more to do. It took Becca a while to realize that their shopping trips were becoming less frequent, and that when they went, Jaime hardly ever bought something for herself. Once she did realize it, though, she started wondering how much money was actually coming in from Jaime's job at the library. Becca started voluntarily cutting back on purchases and requests for trips, and after a week of planning out what to say, she confronted Jaime about their finances; asking to know what was going on and if she could help bring in some money. Jaime looked hurt at the topic coming up, and was slow to talk about it, but eventually relented in the face of Becca's prodding. Things were much tighter than she would have admitted freely, and Becca quickly figured out that Jaime was already beating herself up over not being able to provide for her sister. Finally, she reluctantly agreed to let Becca earn some money for them, and even though a few hours of math tutoring a week didn't bring in great riches, it helped Becca feel like she was contributing something to their strained finances.

The thin times continued, though. Jaime's schedule at work kept her later and later, and Becca started to miss their nightly dinner-and-TV time on Jaime's lumpy old sofa. Jaime didn't eat well and slept worse, and by November of Becca's second year with her, they both knew that if they hit one more bump in the road before things got better, something serious would have to give.

* * *

Jaime gripped the phone receiver tighter, and tried to calm herself down to ask another question. "So...there's no other shifts I can take?"

"No. I'm sorry, but we have to cut back on hours, and everybody else is already taking cuts in time," Marco said. Jaime's heart had leapt into her throat when she heard her boss at the Berkeley library on the other end of the line, and so far, the phone call was living up to all her worst fears. "As of December 5th, we have to cut hours for **everyone** to make our reduced budget work." Jaime heard a quiet sigh on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry, Jaime."

"Come on, Marco," Jaime said. "I need those hours. The library needs those hours. We're barely keeping up some days now."

"And if we had the budget, we'd take you and Danny as much time as we could, but we just don't," Marco replied. "You know as well as I do that we have to make cut backs, and it's either reduced hours, or we have to let two full-time librarians go, and we don't have the staff for that. Look, Jaime, I'm **really** sorry, but -"

"Marco, please," Jaime said and wiped her eye. "Becca and I - we're barely making it right now, between her school and my college. I really need those hours."

"Danny's parents left him high and dry and he's working two jobs," Marco replied. "Shawn has a kid now and nobody to help him. I wouldn't be doing this if I had any other choice. I'm sorry, I really am, but it's the only fair solution."

Jaime sighed. "I understand."

"Look, you've got two weeks before it goes into effect," Marco said. "Talk to some of the others in the library, maybe they can help you find a job. I'll give you time on shift to use the library resources, too. Okay, Jaime?"

"Yes. Thanks, Marco," Jaime said. "I'll see you Monday."

"Take care, Jaime."

Jaime hung up the phone and sat there for a moment, hand resting on the receiver. She ran through the options in her head. With the library job, Jaime could stay in college, Becca's normal classes wouldn't be affected, but it would essentially mean the end of any kind of extra-curricular activities for her. No more robots, no more going out - after rent, Becca's tuition and food, they'd barely come out even. If Jaime found a higher-paying job, Becca could keep doing what she was good at, they could live at a reasonable degree of comfort - but it would probably be on their side of the Bay and be full time, which would spell the end of Jaime's dreams of college degrees and teaching credentials, at least for the near future.

Jaime looked up at the bulletin board next to the phone. Her eyes caught on the pinned up photographs. One, taken by Becca of Jaime hard at work at the library reference desk, three open books around her as she smiled for the camera. Another was taken by Jaime of Becca proudly holding the trophy from that first robotics competition, sitting next to her team's robot. Jaime ran a finger down each photograph, sucked in her lips and knew that there was only one choice.

* * *

Jaime and Becca walked up the front steps of the UC Berkeley main library on that Friday evening determined to enjoy themselves and have a good time. But despite the load of cupcakes under Jaime's arm, both of them couldn't shake the echo of feelings from their parents' funeral as they walked through the front doors. Another part of their lives was coming to an end.

The decorations carefully placed in the study hall near the entrance were spotted from the outside, and the dozen or so people in the room turned and cheered when Jaime and Becca walked into the room. Someone had taped a party store "Good Luck" banner on the wall, and an array of pot-luck food selections were on a folding table underneath. Best wishes for the future and hugs were in ample supply, but despite it all, the general mood was somber at best. News of Jaime finding another job were received by her library troupe with relief, but Jaime didn't have to talk about it too long to make clear that she would rather not have taken it. Yes, working a bar at a UCSF-local college dive would put Jaime closer to Becca's school and leave her with more money to boot, but it left Berkeley firmly out of her reach.

Conversation topics changed between a wide array of subjects, from English lit to science trivia to what Jaime charitably called "crazy library stories". The food was well-received, particularly the cupcakes, and everyone seemed to be having a good time, standing around and chatting. However, every time one of her coworkers came by to wish Jaime luck, she could see in their eyes a moment of "thank God it's not me". Becca simply stood by her sister's side and powered through the food options available, chatting with the library staffers who knew her about the library and robotics, giving her sister the occasional sideways hug.

After two hours, Shawn left abruptly, citing a concerned call from his girlfriend, and from there on, it seemed like every ten minutes saw someone else leave. Finally, the big goodbye party was down to Jaime shooting the breeze with three colleagues while Becca sat on a chair next to the tables and watched leftover chicken casserole march inevitably towards room temperature. Jaime's boss Marco had held out to the end, but when Jaime noticed him checking his watch twice in the span of five minutes, she knew that it was time to leave. There were more hugs, more good wishes, firm promises of getting together soon and not lose contact - but in the end, Jaime and Becca walked out of the library and went home alone.

* * *

Jaime signed to Becca that she needed to take a quick shower before bed when they arrived back at the apartment, so Becca went back to the living room to check her email and do a bit of coding before bed. She tried to force out some lines, but the events of the night were weighing heavily on her mind. Becca knew that Jaime had made the sacrifice for her. Yet again, Becca had become a burden that Jaime had to shoulder, putting her own life and her own happiness on hold so that Becca wouldn't be inconvenienced or held up in any way. It just made her feel like she didn't belong with Jaime. First deafening herself and forcing Jaime to deal with having a deaf younger sister, then moving in with her, and now Jaime putting her dreams on indefinite hold so Becca could have everything she needed. Becca's biggest regrets always seemed to center on what she had done to her big sister's life, and this was just the latest chapter in that book.

A half-hour of failing to make any progress later, Becca yawned and stretched, deciding to call it an unproductive night and go to sleep. As she walked past the bathroom, she noticed the lack of the distinctive damp smell of the shower's haze, and when Becca looked at the door to Jaime's room, the light was still on.

Pushing the door open revealed her big sister seated on the end of her bed, still dressed from the farewell party. Jaime was bent over, elbows on her knees and her face buried in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. Makeup-stained streaks ran down her arms and face. Hearing the soft steps of her sister's approach, Jaime looked up at Becca. She took her right hand off her face and waved it in Becca's direction, as if to shoo her away; when that just left Becca standing in her room, Jaime collapsed back into crying. Tears welled up out of Becca's eyes as she took careful steps towards the bed and sat down on the bed next to her big sister.

"Hey, Jaime," Becca said, taking Jaime's hand. Jaime composed herself long enough to try and sign or even speak a reply, but Becca could see that she was beyond words. Becca simply wrapped her arms around her big sister and hugged her as tightly as she could. "It'll be all right, Jaime. Everything will be okay."

With those words, the floodgates opened back up again, and Jaime wrapped her arms around Becca, sobbing long and deep into her shoulder. Becca sat there with tears rolling down her own cheeks and supported Jaime for a long while as she wept. Eventually, Jaime slowed down, the tears dried up and all that was left was her stuttering breath as the sobs slowly subsided. Only then did Jaime finally run out of steam, and after minutes of just quietly holding her sister, she fell asleep leaning on Becca's shoulder. Becca felt drained, and the thought of either of them spending the night alone felt endlessly cruel. With a final bit of finesse, Becca eased her sister down onto the bed, then climbed in right beside her and pulled the blanket on top of both of them. With her right arm in a tight embrace around Jaime, Becca went to sleep.

* * *

Jaime woke up feeling nothing less than sick. She was still in her clothes from the day before, now wrinkled up and sweaty, and the skin on her cheeks felt dry and itchy. She didn't have to check a mirror to know that her eyes were still red. Thoughts of yesterday still swam through her head, and for a second Jaime entertained the idea of simply going back to sleep, but she knew she wouldn't get any. As much willpower as it took her, she had to get up, take a shower and face the day. Because, she thought, if she let herself go to pieces - what would happen to Becca?

Jaime's nose was still clogged, which kept her from noticing the smell right away; but when she opened the door to the living room, she clearly heard the sizzling of fat in a pan from the kitchenette. Jaime's tiredness and remaining curiosity briefly dueled before curiosity won; she slowly walked toward the kitchenette to investigate.

Becca stood in front of the stove, making bacon, with eggs and pancakes already on the counter behind her. A particularly large bubble popped in the pan, and Becca jumped back with a shout to see Jaime standing there, her dour mood ably lifted by the sight of her little sister trying to cook.

"Hey, Jaime," Becca said, rubbing her bare arm. "I made pancakes and eggs, but the bacon - ow! - keeps trying to kill me."

"Thank you," Jaime said. She drew Becca into a hug, long enough for two more strips to turn crispy with attendant oil splatters. When she released her little sister, she was still smiling. "Go and get some cool water running over your arm. I'll handle this."

"No, it's cool," Becca said. "It's too much oil in the pan, right?"

"Yes," Jaime said, and reached to maneuver the pan off the hot stovetop.

Becca moved to block Jaime. "No, no, I got it, just tell me what to do."

"Okay," Jaime said. "Turn off the stove and move the pan to a cold spot on the top. I'll grab some paper towels so we can drain the bacon on them."

While Jaime went to grab a roll of paper towels from the kitchen counter, Becca gripped the well-used teflon pan by its handle with both hands. As gingerly as she could manage, she shifted the heavy cooking implement off the heated pad on to its cooler neighbor without the crackling oil inside splashing around too much. Next to the stove, Jaime quickly put down a plate with a layered pile of paper towels, then fished the still-cooking strips of bacon from the pan with a pair of tongs and laid them on the paper to shed the oil. Slowly, the sound of crackling died down as the oil started cooling again.

"So, uh," Becca began, "breakfast is ready."

"Thank you," Jaime repeated. "Thank you for this."

"You know, I'm always here for you, big sis," Becca said.

Jaime pulled Becca into a hug and kissed her on the forehead. "I know." They both misted up just a little as Jaime moved back so Becca could read her lips. "I've got my little sister watching my back."

Becca moved back in and they both stood in front of the stove, holding each other for a few more seconds before Becca took a step back. "So!" she said. "I made all this breakfast, and I'm pretty sure it's mostly edible!"

Jaime grabbed a fork and scooped up a large chunk of scrambled egg. She chewed for a second with a smile on her face before replying. "Mmh. You can barely taste the salmonella."

Becca pretended to slug Jaime in the shoulder midway through her bite of bacon. "Jaime!"

"It's good, it's good!" Jaime laughed. "Let's eat."

* * *

Something dropped onto the table in front of Becca, tearing her away from her thoughts. Her eyes narrowed on the object: it was a small egg sandwich wrapped in a preposterous amount of cling wrap, and judging from how it looked, cold and "fresh" from the vending machine downstairs. She looked up to find Corvus standing next to her, holding another sandwich in her hands.

"I figured we'll be here for a while," Corvus said. "So I got us some lunch."

Becca eyed the egg sandwich, aka the strongest non-prescription laxative she knew, then made a show of pushing it away from her. "No, thanks," she said.

"Suit yourself," Corvus said. She sat down, unwrapped her sandwich and dug in with something that could be mistaken for gusto.

"You really shouldn't eat that," Becca said. "I picked up a stomach bug from one of these last year, they're kept in there for months."

"Trust me," Corvus said between bites, "not a problem for me."

"So...while you're committing gastrointestinal suicide, mind actually answering any of my questions?" Becca asked. She rapped her fingers on her netbook and bounced her eyebrows in mock anticipation.

"I agreed to talk to you about Jonas Bledsoe," Corvus replied. "I've already told you more than I was planning on about me, but I'm going to hold up my end of the deal." Corvus took a breath. "Jonas Bledsoe works for the US government," she said. "He recruited me years ago, and he recruited your sister three weeks ago. The men who are following you work for him, too. He knows that as long as he's got his eyes on you, your sister will do whatever he wants. That's the way he works - secrets and fear."

Becca's grip tightened on the table at the thought of being used as leverage over her sister. "Which is...**what**?" Becca hissed. "What did he recruit you and my sister for? What is he forcing her to do that's got her so scared?"

"What he made **me** do," Corvus began. "You don't secretly recruit people for clerical work. When he got to me, I was a seven-year Marine Corps vet. Do I have to draw you a picture?"

"_What?_" Becca's eyebrows narrowed in confusion. "My sister's a English teacher and bartender, not a soldier. Why - **How** would he recruit her for **killing** people? I don't think she's even fired a gun before, and she hates violence. There's no way she'd go along with that, even if she could."

Corvus's face hardened. "I can't tell you why he picked her. And I already told you why she'll do whatever he says. He's got you."

"That doesn't mean she _could_ do it," Becca countered. "My sister is **not** an assassin." She narrowed her eyes at Sara and started typing on her netbook.

"What are you doing?" Corvus asked, tensing for action.

"Oh, just checking something, _Sara,_" Becca said.

Corvus weighed her options. Her implications had led Becca to the right conclusions, but the way she was already questioning them made Corvus consider going to Plan B before the Sommers girl caught on. Then again, she certainly seemed set enough on opposing Bledsoe - Corvus just had to find the right story to convince her with.

"Hah!" Becca shouted. "Care to explain **this**?" She spun her netbook around to show the US Marine Corps press release announcing the death of one Lance Corporal Sara Corvus, age 25, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Corvus didn't bother reading the rest; she knew what it said, every word of it.

"There's a simple explanation for that," Corvus said. "**He** lied."

"Seems to be a lot of that going around," Becca shot back. "Listen, enough with this stonewalling crap. You either tell me the **truth** about what's going on with my sister, or I scream bloody murder and have the campus police here in **seconds**." She crossed her arms and glared across the table at Corvus. She wasn't afraid of her, and she wasn't budging. "It's up to you - **if** you are even who you say you are."

Corvus didn't fold under the threat. In fact, she smirked. "I **am** Lance Corporal Sara Corvus. And if you want to know what's going on with your sister - I'll have to tell you how I died."

* * *

Diego Valdez hadn't had much of a chance to select favorable ground for the exchange with Richard Earlmeyer. Unlike D.C., where he at least knew enough of the city to intuit a suitable meeting place, Oakland offered little familiarity. In the end, he had settled on a industrial courtyard visible from the parking garage: surrounded on two sides by large buildings and chimneys and otherwise ringed with a wall, seemingly deserted and quiet, only one possible entrance to watch. It was a quick decision with a minimum of thought, because most of Valdez's thoughts were tied up with trying to reason himself out of the course he had taken. Intellectually, he knew that this could not end well. That his best choice - what he should have done to begin with - was to go to the authorities, confess everything he knew and trust them with the task of rescuing his daughter.

But that would mean surrendering the illusion of having power over the situation, and that idea proved too strong to dismiss. Against all sense, Valdez clung to it like a lifebuoy in stormy seas - the idea that, somehow, he would save her, that everything would turn out alright.

It is remarkable how pressure molds some people; Valdez had never had occasion to do anything worse than sneaking a few cigarettes into school, but there was ice water in his veins when he drove up to the locked gate of the warehouse complex with his car. The padlock looked more than a little rusty, and under the angry attacks of Valdez and half the tool kit from the trunk of his car, it yielded quickly. Valdez tossed all of it aside and forced the gate open before driving his car onto the premises and turning it around.

He went to the trunk and pulled the buried cellphone free from the case. With a look of disdain on his face, he dialed the only entry entry in the phone's address book. After a few short seconds, the other end picked up.

"I've been expecting your call, Diego," Earlmeyer said. "57 minutes, cutting it a little close, are we? It's almost like you **want** me to kill Gracia."

"You leave her alone!" Valdez said. "I have what you asked."

"We've established that, yes." Valdez could hear the sound of an engine kicking up in the background. "What I wanted to hear was that you're done playing games with it and, by extension, me. Tell me where I can get my package."

"I'm out in the open," Valdez said. "You are tracking this phone, yes?"

That elicited a round of laughter from the other end. "We sure as shit are tracking your phone. Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. But in the interest of not treating you like a three-year old, I thought I should give you a chance to tell me yourself. And with the way you've been acting, how the hell can I be sure that you're with the package right now? Don't try to deny it, I can see it when I close my eyes - we go to where your phone is, you might even be there, but the package isn't, and you'll want to play another game with me, you'll be like 'Nuh-uh, I didn't tell you I had the package with me, now we make, how you say, negotiation!' Working with you is getting just a little tedious, you know."

Valdez couldn't find the words to reply to that.

"Now let me clarify something for you, Diego, because you so obviously don't understand just how deep the shit you're trying to swim in really is," Earlmeyer said. "I know **exactly** where you are right now. If the package isn't with you, there will be no more negotiating. I will execute your daughter in front of you and then we're going to start breaking your bones until you give up the package. Oh, and I think I said I'd get your family, too? I have my team in Barcelona gearing up right now. Your mom, your lovely wife, your brother - Federico, was it? You'll get to watch them die through the magic of the Internet. And then, when we have the package and everyone you've ever cared about is walking with Jesus, **then** we're going to kill you. There's one thing and one thing only you can do to avoid all that. Tell me where I can get my package, Diego. Right the fuck now."

"I am near 1st Street in Oakland," Valdez said, trying to remember the street signs he had passed. "Then a left - south - on Martin Luther, the building on of the left..."

"I always suspected you had a few brain cells left," Earlmeyer said. "We'll be there in ten minutes. Now hush, be a good boy and **stay**."

* * *

Diego Valdez was sitting in his car's driver's seat, still shaking from adrenaline, when a small motorcade rolled up at the meeting place 7 minutes and 42 seconds later. Two black SUVs drove into the courtyard, but Valdez wasn't worried about those; what made him sink back in fear was the large semi truck that pulled up in front of the gate, blocking that exit. Valdez realized that he was backed into a corner in every way that counted. The pistol he had hidden in the improvised sling for his injured arm felt heavier than ever before.

Men climbed out of the two SUVs; most of them were dressed like the two triggermen he had met and fled from this morning, but one wore a gray off-the-rack suit without a tie and big wrap-around sunglasses - Earlmeyer. Valdez took one last breath, then popped the door on his side open and got out of the car.

"Diego!" Earlmeyer shouted from where he was standing. There were twenty yards between them and nobody seemed to think that closing that distance would do any good. "How are you? Feels good to do the smart thing for once, doesn't it?"

"I want to see my daughter!" Valdez shouted back.

"She's in the back of the car," Earlmeyer replied. "You can have her when I have my package. _Tu comprende?_"

"Show her to me first!"

The reply came in the form of a nod from Earlmeyer. At his sign, the men around him drew their guns, though they did not raise them just yet.

"Didn't I just tell you we're done negotiating?" Earlmeyer shouted. "You've wasted enough of my time."

Valdez thought about that for a few seconds. The desperation building in him - and the doubts about whether Earlmeyer could be trusted to honor any kind of agreement - built the case for not going along, but what alternative did he have?

"You can have the package!" Valdez shouted back, raising his good arm to show that he was no threat. "Your men can pick it up! It's still in the car!"

"Fucking finally," Earlmeyer said. "Branson, get the package."

One of the armed men put away his gun and walked over to Valdez's car. The diplomat opened the trunk for him, but his thoughts raced. If Earlmeyer really had his daughter in the SUV - then what was the harm in letting him see her? Kidnappers on TV always used pictures, or put the hostage on the phone...and the FBI would be all over Gracia after his own disappearance, wouldn't they? How could Earlmeyer possibly have gotten her? And that aside, Valdez still had no guarantee that Earlmeyer would let him live after taking the case.

Valdez felt anger rising in him. Damn it! The doubts had been there before, but now that they were solid enough that he wanted to act on them, he was already trapped.

"Man, you're just all kinds of trouble," Branson said; Valdez swung around to see Earlmeyer's crony standing at the trunk of his car, leaning over the case. "Package is here, boss!"

"No!" Valdez said. "Get away from that!"

"Boss!" Branson shouted over to Earlmeyer. "Our man's having second thoughts."

"Oh, for God's sake - just shoot the bastard!" Earlmeyer shouted back.

Valdez snapped when he heard that - just in time to see Branson casually reach for his holstered gun. Valdez was no killer, but in the face of death, what could he do other than defend his life? He ripped his arm free from the sling and swung his pistol around. Branson's eyes widened and he hastened his grab for his own gun, but Valdez had too much of a head start on his draw. In his panic, Valdez fired three times at the rough vicinity of Branson's legs while he backpedaled, hoping to bring down (but not kill) the man. Valdez didn't even look back; he ducked as gunfire from the other end of the courtyard erupted en masse and strafed his car. Fortunately, the open driver's door provided enough cover for him to climb back in and pull it closed with haste. The armored windshield was already generously spiderwebbed from bullet impacts; Valdez fired up the car's engine, put it in reverse and backed up, running over Branson in the process. The connection between Valdez's eyes and his feet must have gotten separated at some point, because he saw the wall behind him approaching and didn't brake. The car consequently crashed into the wall, only saved from serious damage by not having had time to pick up enough speed in reverse. The gunfire from Earlmeyer and his men was still coming, though in starts and fits; obviously a few of them were already reloading for a second go of target practice. Valdez trusted his armored sedan, but even he knew it wouldn't protect him forever.

Shift into first. Gun the engine. Just go.

Earlmeyer saw it coming, too. Valdez had nowhere to go, obviously, so now that crazy Spaniard was on a suicide collision course with Earlmeyer's men, as if taking them with him would earn him something in the next life.

"Scram!" he shouted, directing his men to scatter away from the SUVs and out of the charging car's way. Inside, Earlmeyer had occasion to curse Valdez one last time: why the hell did he have to reenact _Vanishing Point_ with the package still inside his car? What the hell was **wrong** with that guy?

It was probably for the best that Valdez could only see 10% of what was ahead of him, or else he might have done something sensible like step on the brakes. Instead, he slammed into the rear of one of the SUVs at full throttle, blowing his own airbag and spinning the truck out of his car's path. But two tons of armored car doesn't stop on a dime even when you want it to. The car kept going, though the impact threw Valdez off the airbag and onto the passenger seat. In a way, this was good: because then the car slammed into the semi trailer that was supposed to block the exit. The impact sheared off the roof, but not before the immense forces acting on the car's chassis broke its back (and its axles) when the angled struts tried their best to deal with the force by pushing the car down. With the windscreen gone, the side pillars and the rear followed quickly, and **still** the car kept going. It was a beautiful last hurrah of precision engineering that screamed through the gate onto the adjacent loading facility and continued over about a hundred yards more before it finally came to a (somewhat rude) stop by impacting a shipping container.

Valdez righted himself. He was banged up and nursed a concussion and should, perhaps, not be alive, but inside his rattled brain case, the lizard reflex of escape still chugged along. With great difficulty and greater pain, he extracted himself from the twisted wreckage and shambled toward the car's banged-up trunk. Actually, the trunk had fared comparatively well in the sequence of demolition, and the case had taken the rest of the pummeling. Valdez threw a glance over his shoulder at the wrecked gate, expecting to see Earlmeyer's men coming after him any second now. As quickly as his hands allowed, Valdez extracted the silver device from the case and then ran for his life.

* * *

Valdez needn't have hurried quite this much, as Earlmeyer and his men were still in the process of sorting themselves out in the courtyard. Two men were in the process of dragging a screaming Branson to the cars; given that he had taken a few rounds to the legs and then had them crushed under the weight of an armored car for good measure, the mercenary was in a considerable amount of pain. Earlmeyer seemed simply stunned by his front row seat to a desperate man's stunt.

"Sir?" on of the men spoke up. "We're ready to pursue him."

"No. No, fuck that," Earlmeyer said. "We'll have cops all over our asses in a few minutes. Get that semi moved and everybody into the cars, we have to disappear."

"And Valdez?"

"Forget him," Earlmeyer said.

"Yes, Sir."

With people at work around him, Earlmeyer walked a few steps to inspect the damage Valdez had done to the semi's trailer. Quite apart from the paint and the torn metal, it seemed like the trailer's structural beams in the floor had actually given a little, a tribute to the diplomat's armored car and its toughness. You would have to be entirely insane to attempt something like this, but as Earlmeyer kept seeing, Valdez was just that.

It was time to go home and rethink this.


	8. Chapter 8

Hey guys, here's our next chapter - finally. We're bringing you some meaty reveals and, by special request of our favorite reviewer, a little look at Antonio Pope in the commentary. Share and enjoy! (Oh, and please review, even if you're only dropping a line to say if you like it or not - we don't want richierich getting lonely.)

* * *

Dr. William Anthros was not, if he could help it, an idle man. Finishing the household chores had taken him a good while, but after that, he was at a loss for further action without Becca present. It was then that his laptop became propped on the living room table and work quickly reasserted itself with a phone call to the Wolf Creek labs. Will knew the call had taken more than a few minutes when he caught himself pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Another thing," Karl Jaworsky said, for what Will felt was the fifteenth time. "Your report, it makes note of traces of Iridium. I see you mention that in files about anthrocytes - is cute name, by the way - but I am not 100% sure I understand why it is included. There must be easier and cheaper materials, no?"

"Not if we want to avoid cobalt toxicity," Will replied, rubbing his eyes. "And rhodium is even more expensive than iridium. We need it for self-assembly catalysis."

"Logical conclusion is that terrorists use same method as you to build their weapon," Jaworsky said. "They get technology from this Sara Corvus person? Who is she, did she work in this place?"

Will ground his teeth at the mention of her name. "Yes, she worked at Berkut for a while. Part of what makes her so dangerous."

"She is a _suka_," Jaworsky chuckled. "I teach my daughter not to sell experimental nanotechnology to terrorists, for certain."

There was a stony silence from Will's end of the call that Jaworsky didn't need to translate.

"You have history?" Jaworsky asked. "Perhaps you once trust her? I see it often, young scientists who think about science and forget people are people. She sell out your work, yes? It hurts."

"She murdered my father," Will said as flatly as he could manage.

The silence from Jaworsky was either borne of shame or respect; Will couldn't quite tell which. "I am sorry for that," Jaworsky said, finally. "I do not intend an insult to your father or you. I am sorry." Jaworsky sighed. "We will catch her, Doctor. We will stop her."

Will looked over the schematics of the dispersal machine on his screen. "Yes, we will." His eyes drifted down to the bottom right corner of his screen, where it was revealed that it had been more than an hour since he last saw Becca. _Oh, damn._ "Jaworsky, I have to cut this short. We'll talk more in an hour."

"Yes," Jaworsky said. "Until in one hour."

Will disconnected and immediately called Berkut Operations. "This is Anthros, connect me to the duty officer."

A few seconds of dead line later, Ruth Truewell answered the call. "Operations, go ahead."

"I was hoping to talk to Nathan," Will replied. "Is he on duty?"

"Ambrose is on coding duty and not available," Truewell said. "I'm running ops. What's your situation?"

"Where is Rebecca Sommers? I'm supposed to be watching her, but she went out to the market and I haven't seen her since."

"She didn't stop at the market," Truewell replied. "She's gone on to the UC Berkeley library. We have a shadow team outside and camera access. She's safe and sound, William."

Will could hear Ruth judging him from the other side of the line. _Good job watching your girlfriend's daughter, Anthros. I can see how much this matters to you._ "Thank you. I'll head over there now to pick her up."

"How are you going to explain that you know where she is?" Truewell asked. "She did lie to you about where she was going, didn't she?"

"Yes, but -"

"You could just ask her where she is," Truewell said.

Will thought about that for a moment. "No, she would just think that I'm spying on her."

"She's a teenager," Truewell replied. "You're worried about her safety. It's the most natural thing in the world."

Will sighed. "Do you have eyes on her?"

"Not right now, she's in a part of the library without camera coverage. She'll be impossible to miss coming out, though. We've had a team go over the building last week. It's as safe as any other public place."

"I'll call her right now," Will said. "Thank you for keeping an eye on her for me."

"Jaime is fine, too, by the way," Truewell added. "Everything's under control."

"All right," Will said. "I will talk to you again later, Truewell."

With his first phone call concluded, Will started off the couch. Jaime had left Becca's cell phone number written on some post-it or another, and it was time to find it. For once, the obvious suspect proved the correct one; Will found the note stuck to the fridge door, ripped it off and typed the number into his cell.

_I should put that on speed dial_, he thought.

The number complete, a moment's hesitation on what exactly to say allowed another thought to race through his mind, beating the "Hit the call button" idea to the finish line by a nose.

"She's deaf," Will said to himself. He sighed to himself and finagled the phone into opening a new SMS for editing. Looking like a fool: averted.

* * *

It took fifteen minutes for Sara Corvus to tell her story, or at least the parts of it that she was willing to share; Becca paid attention, if only to snatch up whatever information could be used to explain what had happened to her sister. Frustratingly enough, Sara's tale was about her life before all this: her last deployment to Iraq in 2004 as leader of a bridge survey team near Fallujah. That seemed to line up with what she had read of Sara's "death", though, which was really just a smokescreen for Bledsoe to have her abducted under the cover of an emergency medevac. Becca couldn't help but worry about how they managed to abduct Jaime; and what horrible accident - or not-so-accident - had happened to Jaime if that was their preferred method of "recruitment". But this was where Sara stopped telling, and once again Becca was left to figure out how to go from there.

The latest staredown between Becca and Sara ended when both their looks were drawn to Becca's cell phone slowly inching across the table between them. Becca felt a flush of embarrassment; partly because she did not need any interruptions in digging the truth out of her recalcitrant informant, partly because she knew from Jaime's rants how disruptive cell phones could be in a library. She grabbed the phone and looked back at Sara, waiting for her gaze to refocus on her - an automatic courtesy to other lip readers.

"I have to take this," Becca said.

She opened the message with a few key presses; she did not recognize the number, but the writing was a dead giveaway even before the name at the end.

_Hello Rebecca, you left home more than an hour ago and I have not heard from you. Please tell me where you are, and I will come pick you up. Will_

Becca shook her head. "Took him long enough," she said, and quickly composed a reply. _I'm fine, decided to go to the library after all. Later._

"Who's that?" Sara asked. "And just to make that clear, you are **not** bringing that cell phone into a meeting with me again. You don't know what they've done with it. At least turn it off and pull the battery."

"Just my sister's boyfriend," Becca said. "Will Anthros, he's a roboticist and doctor in the city."

Sara said nothing. Her face, on the other hand, said a lot. That controlled non-expression she had maintained for most of their meeting was gone in an instant, replaced with what Becca could only call rage; her lips pressed together until they were thin red lines, her eyes narrowed and her eyebrows nearly collided. But the expression was more than her face; it rippled down her neck, tensing muscles all the way into her hands.

Becca raised an eyebrow. "What, he kill your family or something?"

Sara's eyes went wide, as if she had just noticed that Becca was still sitting across from her, before her gaze instantly dropped down at the table. Her cheeks flushed red and her hands balled into fists as she muttered something through a pursed grimace that Becca couldn't read.

Becca leaned over onto the table to try to get into Sara's sight line. "Hey, Sara? I can't read your lips if you look at the table."

Sara took a few deep breaths, then looked back up at Becca. "Yes. Right."

"Seriously, what's your problem with Will?" Becca asked.

"Don't ask," Sara replied through gritted teeth.

"He's dating my sister, and -"

"Just **drop** it," Sara growled back, turning her scowl on Becca for an instant. Becca could have sworn her heart skipped a beat before Sara looked away again and shoved whatever it was back down just as quickly. She folded her hands together in a mostly futile attempt to regain control over herself, then looked back at Becca, more composed but still barely containing her anger. "How long has your sister known him?"

"Uh, maybe eight or nine months?" Becca said. "They met at the bar she used to work at."

"That explains your sister's recruitment," Sara said. "It wasn't random. They've been watching her. Probably started a year ago, maybe longer. And Anthros had his hooks in her from the beginning." She sighed. "This will be harder than I thought, and it wasn't easy to begin with."

"Whoa, whoa, hold up," Becca said. "**Will?** That is - he's just a professor at Cal, not some secret agent. And he might be kinda...thick, emotionally, but he really does care about Jaime. It's really kinda embarrassing how hard he tries. **No way** is he involved in this."

"William Anthros isn't just a part of it, Rebecca, he's responsible for all this," Sara replied with a sneer. "He picked me and he picked your sister. Even if he really loves her, it's just another way for Bledsoe to manipulate them both. You shouldn't be so quick to defend your friend William, Rebecca. You don't know know what he's done to Jaime. And me."

"Then **tell** me, instead of all of this dancing around the** reason** I wanted to meet you here," Becca shot back. "What's the reason for this hate-on you have for Will and Bledsoe? What did they do to you, and **what** are they doing to my **sister**?"

Sara leaned back; Becca could see her calculating her next words before she leaned forward and spoke. "They kidnapped me and experimented on me. Your good friend 'Will' Anthros cut me open and turned me into their private bionic killing machine. The only choice I ever got was to do what Bledsoe told me or die. They forced me to go out and kill people for them, Rebecca. Fifteen people," she said, emphasising each word with a stab of her finger onto the table. "Who knows what they had done - maybe just gotten in Bledsoe's way. And who knows how many others I'm responsible for."

Sara took a few breaths, while her unblinking eyes seemed to focus on something that was far beyond Becca. The young girl's eyes, however, were hanging on Sara's lips, raptly focused on not missing a single word.

"Eventually," Sara finally said, "I escaped. I went through a dozen of their men on my way out. They had reinforcements, of course. They chased me, ran me down and put rounds through me until they were sure I was dead. That's why I have to be so careful, Rebecca. Bledsoe thinks I'm dead and that's the only advantage I have. Everybody else...they think I died four years ago in Iraq. If I ever called my parents and told them that their daughter is still alive - or contacted any of my friends - I'll get to watch them be killed before they drag me back to their hole and cut me apart to figure out where the hell their little science project went wrong." Her eyes drilled little holes through Becca. "Does that answer your questions, Rebecca? Or should I get into the **details**?"

Becca didn't know where to even begin. She kept her stare at Sara's lips for a second longer before looking down at her computer. "I - What did they do to you?" She started to tear up. "What are they doing to Jaime?"

Sara said nothing; instead, she simply slipped her right arm out of her jacket. It was Becca's first good look at Sara's build, which compared favorably with a cage fighter - her arm, at least, was more than big enough for it. However, where such a cage fighter might sport the usual cliche barbed wire tattoo going around her bicep, Sara's arm had a pink scar going all around the top of her shoulder and down through the armpit. Then Sara moved her arm around, and it took Becca a few more seconds to wrap her head around the undeniable observation that the two edges of the scar were moving past each other - it was not a scar at all, it was a seam. Sara's encore was equally silent and minimalist. She grabbed one of the off-white library pens from the table and snapped it in half like a twig between three of her fingers.

The barrage of unbelievable information and sights finally proved too much for Becca to handle. She simply sat there, staring at Sara's arms, and slowly shifted her gaze up to Sara's face. Out of the hundreds of questions battling for space in her head, only one managed to get out. "H...how?"

"This is a library, Rebecca," Sara replied. "Your friend Will is a published author. Look him up."

Becca nodded slowly and logged into the UC Berkeley reference system. A search for "William Anthros" pulled up easily two dozen papers, though none more recent than 2003. Still, just scanning the titles painted a picture of the scope of Will's ambitions. _Protonic circuitry for biological interfaces. Shaping electroactive polymer interaction through kinetic modeling. Building a better retina - a conjectural CCD-nerve-translator. Self-organizing nanomotile molecules - remote power, central control, arbitrary payload. Towards a programmable immune system. _Her throat choked on the last title. _Practical bionics - a challenge to medical ethics?_

Becca's eyes widened when she looked back to Sara. "How is this possible? Why are they doing this to Jaime? What did they do to her?"

Sara squinted and rubbed her temples as Becca seemingly regained her ability to barrage her with questions. "Again, one at a time - I don't know why they picked **her** -"

"What?" Becca asked. "What are you - I don't know what you're -" She shook her head. "No, it doesn't make sense - why would they **do **this to Jaime? What could Bledsoe want with her?"

"What do you think, Rebecca?" Sara said. "Bledsoe lost his weapon when I escaped. He saw a chance to get a new weapon in her. And now they're trying to make her into **me**."

Becca gasped. "That's - someone has to stop them! We've got to tell the police, the FBI, someone. _Someone_ has to be able to get her out of there!"

"**Shut up,**" Sara barked. Becca bolted upright and sat frozen in her chair, afraid she had crossed some sort of line. "Just for a moment, Rebecca, please," Sara said, her voice softening again as she continued to massage her forehead. "You're not getting the message here. Bledsoe and Anthros have enough resources to make this technology real. To make people like me and your sister disappear. They are plugged so deep into the system that they don't even have to try to get away with murder. What the **fuck** do you think a few beat cops or even the fancy fucking FBI can do about that, huh? Look at me. You need me and I need you. **We** have to stop them. Together, it's a long shot. Any other way? They're going to fucking bury us. Do you understand me?"

Becca looked down at the picture of her and Jaime she kept uncovered on her netbook's desktop. Her fingers hurt from gripping the table, but she knew that Sara was right. They were able to kidnap Sara, and keep Jaime and her under their thumb without anyone noticing. If Jaime was to stand a chance, Becca would have to take them on herself. She sighed, and let go of the table. With the truth of the situation finally out, Becca managed to put her out-of-control mind back in order. Her world had turned upside down, but in that inverted world, things made sense again. _Will brought Jaime into this program. She's been implanted with this bionics stuff. And now, Bledsoe and Will are trying to make her into some kind of super-soldier, they can make us both disappear, and __**that's**__ why Jaime is so scared._

Becca nodded to show her comprehension. "Okay, then. What do **I** need to do?"

"Right now? I need you to stop digging into things from your home. I can arrange for a safer method. We have to create some breathing room." Sara sighed. "It's a risk, but Bledsoe's men know you've seen them. So, I want you to tell Jaime about the men following you. Don't accuse her of anything. As far as you know, they don't have anything to do with her, they're after you and you're scared. Got that?"

"Right," Becca said. "And I'll let her know that I'm here to help her out -"

"**No**," Sara said. "Nothing is wrong. Business as usual. If she's in a bad mood, sure, cheer her up. But you don't know anything that could be troubling her. This is important, Rebecca."

"And you know what's more important? Making sure that Jaime knows that I am **there** for her," Becca shot back. "She is all alone right now, and she **needs** me. I will **not** just sit by while she is **terrified** and **alone**."

"Yes, you will," Sara growled. "If you tell her, Bledsoe will know -"

"She's not going to tell them!" Becca shouted. "She's my **sister** -"

Sara's arm shot forward; her hand clamped onto Becca's shoulder and pushed her down into her seat. "**Rebecca**," Sara said. "Shut up. People will hear you. And **I'm** talking. Listen to me." Becca winced and whimpered as Sara's hand closed on her shoulder. Sara's eyes widened, and she quickly withdrew her arm again. With no idea how to go from there, she looked around again, then back to Becca. "Sorry." Sara stopped speaking and just stared at her.

Becca rubbed her shoulder a few times, then looked back at Sara and nodded. "I'm okay. Just surprised me, that's all." She flashed a small smile at Sara. "Well?"

Sara nodded; it seemed to be a safe gesture to make. After a second, she got back on her train of thought. "I know you care about your sister a lot, Rebecca. But she's not just your sister anymore. She's stuffed full of military-grade hardware. If they did to her what they did to me -" Sara trailed off and took a deep breath. "They cut off my arms and my legs. Tore my eyes out. Carved my chest off to reinforce my ribs. I don't have any real skin left, it's all fake. There are billions of tiny machines in my blood that will not let me die, no matter what happens to me. And do you know what I see? The system showing me **exactly** what I need to do to kill you, right now, as efficiently as possible. I'm a brain and some bones and organs. They took everything else."

Becca had stopped breathing when Sara got to Bledsoe's people removing her eyes, and only when Sara had finished her rant did she finally take a gasp of air as her stomach bent itself into a bowline. "And..." Becca placed a hand on her stomach to try to settle it down, but pushed forward regardless. "And this was because you were blown up? What - how did they get Jaime?"

"I don't know," Sara admitted. "Was she gone for more than a day recently?"

She thought back to the first time Jaime disappeared. "She...she disappeared for a day or so a few weeks ago," Becca said. "She didn't come home from a date with Will, she wasn't there in the morning and she didn't pick me up from school. It was the first time she ever left me alone for more than a few hours without telling me."

Sara looked down at the table. "It must have been then. They cut her open and send her back, good as new." Sara hesitated for a moment as Becca's gaze drifted off of her lips while she tried to process the horror of her sister being cut open and put back together in a night. "Rebecca?" She didn't respond, and it took a moment for Sara to realize that Becca couldn't tell what she was saying, as she wasn't looking at her anymore.

Sara waved a hand in front of Becca's face, and her attention snapped back to Sara. "Huh? What?"

"I need to know how your sister acted when she back home that night," Sara said.

"Uh, she was fine, she said her phone was broken..." Becca scowled as she concentrated. "And that Will's cell phone didn't have my new number. I said she had work soon, she said it was fine and then we ate dinner before she left. I think she quit Finnegan's Wake that night, too."

Sara nodded. "Cutting ties, just what they'd order her to do. When did you first notice how scared she was?"

Becca's eyebrows shot up again when Sara mentioned "cutting ties". "Two days later," she warily replied. "She went missing all night again, and we had a big fight, but when I demanded to know what Bledsoe was having her do, she broke down and tried to push me away, and she looked so _scared_..." A few tears appeared in the corners of her eyes just thinking about it, but she wiped them away. "That was the first time I knew something was wrong."

"You're right, something is **very** wrong, Rebecca," Sara said. She leaned in towards Becca. "You can not tell Jaime that you know any of this. In fact, nothing you've told her or shown her since they sent her back is safe." Sara's gaze bored through Becca. "Look into my eyes."

Becca looked up. Within seconds, Sara's eyes went from blue to brown to green and back again. "I'm recording everything I see and hear. Every time I came back from a mission, they pulled the recordings and went over them with a fine-toothed comb. Everything your sister sees, everything your sister hears - it will all be reviewed by people who are trained to look for suspicious details. Whatever you tell her, you tell to Jonas Bledsoe. She's not just your sister, Rebecca. Whatever privacy you think you have when you're with her, whatever secrets you share with her, it's all gone now. They took her away and sent her back as a walking surveillance platform for them. We have no room for error. If they ever find out, they can flick a switch in her brain, shut down her emotions and make her perfectly obedient, and your sister won't get to think - she'll kill you without hesitation. When she seemed okay to you the night she came back, that was because they were **already** using the controls to keep her docile. It sounds like they took her off them for now, but trust me, if they find out about this, they will give the order. Your own sister will kill you, and she won't be able to stop herself."

As Sara spoke about the depths of Jaime's..._violation_ seemed to be the only appropriate way to describe it, Becca felt more and more light-headed and ill. _They took my sister away, and sent her back as a...hostage-spy-person,_ Becca thought. By the time Sara got to the mind control, she already felt herself gagging. "I'm going to be sick," Becca said, and bent over in her chair, hugging her stomach and squeezing out tears.

Sara nodded and rose from her seat, taking a few steps as she talked. "Come on. Keep it together. I'll take you to the restrooms." Becca gagged; Sara quickly grabbed a trash can and shoved it under Becca's face just in time for her to empty her stomach into it. When Becca finally, mercifully found nothing more to retch, Sara handed her a napkin to wipe her mouth with and let Becca brace herself on her shoulder for a moment.

"Welcome to **my** life," Sara said.

Becca spit a few times and wiped her mouth with the napkin. "Thanks, Sara," she said while still hanging onto Sara's shoulder. Becca looked up at Sara, and instead of at least the glimmer of doubt Sara was expecting, there was nothing but fire and determination in Becca's eyes. "So, when are we rescuing my sister?"

"With your help, very soon," Sara said. "But you need to start doing what I tell you and stop second-guessing me every step of the way. There are no grades for enthusiasm, Rebecca. We have to make **smart** moves. And right now, that means quieting things down and reducing your profile. Got it?"

Becca nodded. "Right, no more Googling Bledsoe at home. I can focus on some other stuff for right now, but **soon**, Sara, I want the whole truth on what's going on, who you're working with, what's really going on with Bledsoe and Will, everything. I won't just sit back and watch my sister go through Hell, you either give me something to do or I'll think of something myself."

"After hearing what I just told you, I think most people would rather know less," Sara smirked. "I can't tell you much about what I'm doing yet, I need to talk with the others first. Trust me, I know **exactly** how much you want those fuckers to go down in flames. We're going to make our move very soon. All I'm asking for is a chance to plan this and to bring you up to speed on our operation." She looked around. "I've already said a hell of a lot I shouldn't have. You never know who's listening when you're in a public place. The next time we meet, it'll be in a safehouse."

"Right, cool," Becca said. She started to shut down her netbook, and while it finished that, she looked back across the table at Sara. "So, err, how are we getting out of here? I'm sure Itchy and Twitchy outside are watching the exits."

Sara's face wore a thin smile. "Clever girl. You're familiar with the building. How many exits do you know?"

"There's a **lot** of exits," Becca started, then stopped in thought for a moment. "Ah! Moffitt! You can exit through there!"

Sara nodded. "Another building. Good, they're probably focused on covering the exits from the library itself. You should take a different route back to the train station, too."

"How should I get to the station?" Becca was suddenly very excited about the possibility of some spy action. "What should I watch out for? What do I do if I think I'm being followed?" She thought for a moment. "Wait, can I just hitch a ride with you, if you drove here? You pick me up on Telegraph or something?"

"One question at a time, Rebecca - we talked about that, remember?" Sara said. "Walk a different route, Berkeley has an easy layout for pedestrians. Watch out for black late-model SUVs, they're not too common around here and Bledsoe's not that original." Sara pushed herself away from the table and rose from her chair. "If you think you're being followed, your best bet is to find a crowd to lose them in. And I won't be giving you a ride. Let me be honest with you, Rebecca. I don't think you will lose your shadows that easily. If they see you get into a car - if they see **me** - then we're all done. I won't take that risk."

"Right, operational secrecy, top secret, all that good stuff," Becca said, standing up herself.

"We will no longer use your cellphone," Sara said; she reached into her jacket and pulled out a small package. "This is a disposable phone. Registered to a false name, prepaid in cash, it can't be traced back to either of us."

"It's a burner phone, yeah, I know, I watch TV and stuff," Becca said. She stuffed the phone into her bag with her netbook. "Where's the charger?"

Sara frowned. "...I think I threw that away with the packaging. Sorry. Can you figure it out? I'll get a new one, if that's a problem..."

Becca smiled. "They always forget the charger on TV, too. Don't worry, I have a few at home. So, what's the plan, Double-Oh-Corvus?"

Sara mirrored the smile despite herself. "I'll call you to set up the next meeting. Have the phone with you at all times, don't use it around Jaime. If you think someone's about to take it from you - smash it. Any questions?"

"Yeah," Becca said. "You've got bionics, right? And presumably, you're working with someone who can make more, just to keep yourself going, yeah?"

"What are you getting at?" Sara asked.

"Well..." Becca smiled sheepishly. "They're kinda cool, if you take out the whole 1984 Enemy of the State surveillance-mind control creeptasticness out of it. Do you think I could maybe get hooked up with some new ears, or maybe some kickass robo-legs..."

Sara's facial expression took a detour through horror before arriving at anger. "You don't know what you're talking about. These 'kickass robo-legs' are all I have left because my **real** legs are smeared over a side alley in Fallujah. Do you want parts of your body blown off, too, or do you prefer a psychopath with a bonesaw? Either way, no, that's not going to happen. It's bad enough that your sister and I got screwed up. I will **not** let this happen to anyone else. Do you understand?"

Becca put her hands up in the air in mock-surrender. "Okay, okay, jeez. I was just thinking that it'd be cool to be all spoon-bending badass, maybe hear stuff again. Sorry."

Sara maintained her anger until Becca mentioned hearing again; at that, her expression softened a little. Instead of more shouting, she just shook her head. "It's not worth it," she whispered.

Becca wanted to argue that particular point, but the equal parts sad, scared and traumatized look on Sara's face shouted _I've got a __**lot**__ of issues about my bionics_ to Becca, and she didn't want to provoke another shouting match - or make Sara break down in tears. "Yeah, okay, maybe later, then."

"Let's save your sister first," Sara suggested. "You can daydream later. Any questions - about what to do and when we're meeting, please."

"Nope," Becca said. "Just talk to whoever you have to talk to fast. I'm not planning on waiting around while you and whoever else you're going to talk to decide how to brush me off."

"I think I've told you enough to show that I'm serious about working with you, Rebecca," Sara said.

"Talk is one thing, showing is another," Becca said. "Just...make it fast. For Jaime. Okay?"

Sara nodded. "I will. Now get out of here before your shadows become impatient." She checked her watch. "I have to go. Good luck." Leaving Becca no opportunity to respond, she turned and walked off, disappearing into the stacks in seconds.

"Good luck," Becca said to the space where Sara was standing, and didn't move. The whole world seemed to be suffering from a serious reality deficit, like she had fallen through the cliche rabbit hole and into a strange new place where her pacifist sister was a part-robot assassin and shadowy government agents were watching their every move through her eyes. _God, this whole __**thing**__ is such a trope,_ Becca thought even as her mind struggled with the panic of the situation. _Even the whole "paralyzed by fear" thing. Well, let's break the mold one bit at a time, starting with getting the Hell out of here without being seen._ She took a step towards the table, picked up her bag and started walking towards the Moffitt building on the other side of the stacks.

The slow and winding route that Becca took through the library to avoid the cameras (just like she had watched Sara do it) gave her time to think more about what all of this meant, to herself, and especially to Jaime. Bledsoe was obviously a grade A evil bastard if he really did kidnap Sara and did to Jaime what Sara claimed he had done. Becca knew her sister was strong, stronger than anyone she knew, but she had to wonder how long Jaime could hold out against someone who could turn her own mind and body against her. That, more than anything, was what convinced Becca that Jaime couldn't wait. She needed to know that backup was here, that Becca was there for her and was working to figure something out, because otherwise she would have nothing to hold onto when Jonas Bledsoe started to turn the screws on her to...do whatever it was he wanted her to do. No matter how strong Jaime was, she would have to give in, lose herself and start killing people for him, just like Sara did. Sara made good points when she told Becca to wait for her to be ready, but that look of fear and dread from a few weeks ago still haunted her. She wouldn't let Jaime live like that a **moment** more than she had to, no matter what anyone told her to do.

Not that she could entirely trust Sara. Sara openly admitted that she had killed a whole bunch of people, most of whom hadn't done anything wrong. Becca also remembered the Stranger Danger lessons from elementary school, and even though she was careful to meet Sara someplace she knew really well and could get help in quickly, she still knew that she was taking a big risk meeting with some random person from the Internet, especially with what she was poking around in. If "Oscar" had turned out to be some kind of trap, Becca would be dead or in the back of a van already. Not that Sara was **necessarily **not out to get her - who **knew** who she was working with or working for? - but at least she seemed concerned about Jaime's safety and was actually helpful once Becca started to drag information out of her. Unless, of course, she was just straight up lying to Becca about who she was to use her to get to Jaime. Becca shrugged at that thought. _If that's true, then I'm already fucked._

But one thing that certainly **was** true was that bionics technology existed. What Sara did with that pen and what her arms looked like didn't make any sense unless bionics were real. Alongside the fear for Jaime and her own safety and the determination to save her sister, Becca felt the excitement of what the technology meant, and what she could do with it. She already recognized the systems for monitoring and controlling the bionics themselves, and while the fundamentals of the interface still eluded her, it didn't seem like something that was beyond her grasp. She had copies of all of Will's papers in her netbook, and her head was already filling with possible applications for the tech - including what she might have done to herself. She was polite with Sara's objections - and didn't want to send her into a screaming rage or have her break down in tears in the middle of their secret library meeting - but Becca knew that Sara was wrong. It sounded for all the world like being hooked up with bionics had been a horrible violation and was more traumatic than Becca could imagine, but that was Sara. Becca, more than anyone, understood the upsides of this technology. Even more than wanting to be as strong and tough as Sara was, Becca wanted to hear again. Cochlear implants couldn't even come close to what she had lost, but here in front of her was an opportunity to get the real thing back. As she walked into the Moffitt building lobby and looked through the darkened glass for her followers, she dreamt of hearing her sister's voice again. And if that meant going through every bit of pain and effort that Sara did - then that's what Becca would do.

* * *

In what was turning out to be a very bad day for Sandra Caulfield's developing ulcers, the FBI agent had barely gotten to sit down with the arrested mercenaries or the mole before the next call came in: a serious shootout in Oakland - one with the missing Spanish embassy Jaguar XJS at the scene. That, of course, couldn't wait, so a few minutes later the motorcade was rolling again. Caulfield spent the ride going over her interview strategy with the suspects. She would have to call Pope and ask what great insights, if any, his second search of the initial crime scene had produced. When the convoy rolled up to the perimeter of yellow tape, she was first out of the car, her eyes locked onto the nearest police officer while her hand made a reflexive grab for her FBI badge.

"Special Agent Sandra Caulfield." She paused for the officer to check her badge and ID, in case the squad of federal agents behind her wasn't enough. "I understand this incident involved a Spanish embassy Jaguar?"

The Oakland PD cop nodded. "Yeah, it's shot and beat to shit. Wonder anyone got out of it alive."

"I'm currently investigating the disappearance of the man last seen with that car, and possible attempts on his life." Caulfield put her badge back in her jacket. "I'm taking over the crime scene, I need all forensics forwarded to the FBI field office instead of Oakland PD -"

"Excuse me, Ma'am, but Special Agent Pope has already commandeered the scene," the officer said.

Caulfield's blood instantly flash-boiled. She slowly looked back up at the officer, her face frozen in a furious grimace. "...**who** has taken over the scene?"

"Special Agent Pope," the officer said. He turned and pointed over to the smashed semi-truck trailer. "He's over there."

Caulfield followed the officer's finger, and sure enough, there was Pope, poking about the dozens of shell casings and the remains of the Jag.

"But he said you might be coming, so go ahead," the officer added.

Caulfield simply stared at Pope in blind rage for a few seconds before flipping the tape over her head and stomping past the officer on her way to Pope.

Pope saw Caulfield coming and waved to her as she approached. "Hello, Sandra," he began. "I didn't find anything new at scene of the first shootout. Have you had time to interrogate the prisoners yet?"

Caulfield grabbed Pope's arm and dragged him away from the FBI crime scene techs working over the scene. "What the **fuck** do you think you are doing?" she hissed at him. "_Special Agent_ Pope? I should arrest you right now for impersonating a federal agent - this is **not** what I agreed to."

"Sandra," Pope said, bemused at her dramatic gesture, "we both know you won't arrest me. Besides, you need our help to find Valdez. I'm merely expediting the process - and you could be interrogating people instead of trying to babysit me. That would get us the results we need much quicker."

"Forget babysitting, I'd get a fucking impartial UN observer to watch you if it was up to me," she spat at Pope. She looked around for someone. "Where's Nick? You didn't have him put in some black ops hole, did you?"

"Be serious, Sandra," Pope replied, now seeming more mildly annoyed. "Special Agent Eaton is keeping an eye on me, as you ordered, like a good little agent. Right now, he's examining the southern yard, where most of the shooting occurred. There is some blood there that will no doubt give us valuable information about the people involved in the shooting. Now," he concluded, "how is your part of the case going?"

Caulfield sighed and looked down at her feet, then met Pope's gaze again. "Nothing much yet, still waiting on Agent Ballard to be processed and his attorney to consent to an interview, same with the team at the intersection."

Pope's smirk told her all she needed to know about how he would have handled those pesky legal barriers. "I'm afraid I have to play the national security card here, Sandra," he said, hardly apologetic. "The contents of the trunk need to be shipped to a secure facility immediately. Your Mr. Valdez is involved in...something **very** serious. That makes it vital that we redouble our efforts to find him." He placed his hand on the trunk lid, clearly implying that she had no business looking inside the embassy car's trunk.

"Whoa, hold on, you can't just take evidence from this investigation off to whatever secret base you're from now," Caulfield said. "Bledsoe sent you here to **help** with my investigation, not steal evidence. You either tell me what's going on, what's inside there, why and how it's so important and what it has to do with our case, or I call Bledsoe and we find out what he thinks about you stepping all over **our** case."

"Do you really think that I do anything the old man does not agree with?" Pope replied, straightening his back to loom over Caulfield. "I thought you were smarter than that, Sandra. You may have called him, but we are not helping you clean up your fuck-up just as a personal favor to you. There are bigger things at stake than the diplomat or your career. Now, I would greatly appreciate it if you stayed in your lane, worked with me as I've asked you to, and not interfere with my actions. You know better than to become a part of the **problem**." Pope took a step towards Caulfield. "Am I making myself clear, **Sergeant**?"

Caulfield tried to keep eye contact with Pope, but the staring contest only lasted a few seconds before Caulfield broke gaze. She knew that Pope wasn't bluffing, and if Bledsoe backed his actions, she couldn't stand in his way. "Yes," she said, defeated. "Yes, Sir."

Caulfield turned and walked away from the car, motioning for the FBI techs to leave it alone while Pope snapped a few quick shots of the metal case inside the trunk with his phone. With the scene hastily documented, he dialed Bledsoe's number, waiting for the click on the other end.

"Confirm crypto," Pope said. There was a moment of silence.

"Confirming crypto five-zero-two-Golf-zero," Bledsoe said. Pope lowered his phone and looked at the display; Bledsoe's sequence matched his, authenticating the encrypted connection between the two phones.

"Crypto confirmed."

"Go ahead, Major," Bledsoe said.

"Sir, I have reason to believe that Mr. Valdez is in possession of Millennium technology," Pope said, looking around to make sure nobody was close enough to listen in.

"Details," Bledsoe barked. "Now."

"I found a carrying case bearing Millennium inventory coding in the trunk of his car," Pope said. "The contents are missing, I believe Valdez took them when he escaped the scene. This is likely what he was smuggling into the country - and what the assailants are after. I need a priority retrieval and a secure lab for analysis prepared at once. Agent Caulfield is apprised of our intervention. Current objectives remain in play."

"Are you messing with me, Major?" Bledsoe said. "There should be no Millennium technology left, period, and now we've got an entire case of gear on US soil, whereabouts unknown? How in the hell did this fly under our radar? I need that gear found **yesterday**, Pope. You make sure that **nobody** gets close to the car until I get there. Go with the dirty bomb routine."

"And if anyone does not comply?" Pope asked.

"Detain them as risk to national security," Bledsoe said. "Zip-tie Sandra's entire team if you have to. Anyone who interferes is going away. Make sure she understands that."

"I have already made that clear," Pope said.

"I want you to forget about the girl and the file access, these are secondary now," Bledsoe said. "Your priority is securing the Millennium gear. And I want Valdez brought in for interrogation. I don't care if he's in FBI custody or about to board a diplomatic flight back to Spain, you bring him to Wolf Creek for questioning. If someone out there is dealing in their technology, we're looking at another arms race. I won't let that happen."

"What if that someone is Sara Corvus, Sir?" Pope asked. "Anthros may be fixated on her, but it doesn't mean he's wrong."

"That's our worst case scenario," Bledsoe said. "If it is her, don't hero it. Engaging her on your own is suicide. Be careful and keep your scrambler ready, just in case. I will authorize a Tin Man deployment with override if necessary."

"Can we still keep Tin Man on her current mission parameters under these circumstances?" Pope asked. "There's little threat of Corvus showing up at the hotel, but the situation might still go kinetic."

"Consider that location secure," Bledsoe said dismissively. "Sommers and Ginsburg can handle it."

"And what's our information policy towards Tin Man and Ginsburg?" Pope asked.

"Mission compartmentalization remains in effect," Bledsoe said. "We shouldn't distract them. I trust that clears everything up?"

"Yes, Sir," Pope replied. "I will wait for you here."

Pope hung up the call, stashed the phone and cleared his throat.

"May I have your attention, please, everyone," he projected, raised his hands and then waited for both the nearby cops and Caulfield to look at him. "We have a potential radiological threat inside this car. I'm going to need you all to step away and keep away from the vehicle in a radius of 100 feet. Help is on the way..."

* * *

It wasn't until she and Gracia were back at the hotel that Jaime regained the ability to relax. The mission she had begun as almost a personal favor to Ruth was showing traces of something altogether more ugly, and once again she felt dropped into the deep end of the pool with no lifeguard in sight. But then there was Gracia Valdez, putting a very human face on Jaime's efforts, and that made the day so far seem worthwhile. The diplomat's daughter was on her way to her suite, being escorted by a veritable gaggle of FBI agents, and managed to throw a coy smile at Jaime when she walked past her. The girl needed some genuine human contact Jaime was happy to provide, and hey, if Jaime could make a habit of being able to punch out the bad guys and have them arrested instead of being made to shoot them, then maybe this job had a future. Speaking of the nicer side of Berkut, Jaime was pleased to find Antoine Ginsburg waiting for her in the hotel lobby, wearing a nondescript suit and an alcohol-buoyed smile.

"There you are," he said, holding out his hand to shake. "I saw the video. Nice takedown. You want me to walk you through the rest of the event?"

Jaime smiled back. "You saw that?" She realized who she was talking to a moment later, and the smile dropped off her face. "Of course you saw that, you probably had the live feed," she said and pointed to her right eye.

"Indeed," Ginsburg replied, his smile disappearing for a moment. "I didn't know you had training like that. Where'd you learn that move? Or did you just improvise?"

Jaime's smile returned with Ginsburg's. "Self-defense classes, a bit of karate at Berkeley, and bartending for the last year. Pretty good training in dealing with drunken patrons and FBI agents."

"Good to know," Ginsburg said. "Come on, let's take a look at the ballroom. Do a quick walkthrough, so we know where everything is."

Jaime nodded. "What do I need to look out for?"

Ginsburg trotted off toward the closest elevator; Jaime walked beside him. "Your first priorities are entrances and exits," Ginsburg began. "If you need to move, it helps to know your options, and if you're expecting trouble, it helps even more to know what approaches you need to watch. We'll also be checking lines of sight within the room and obstacles like tables or railings. Everything you have to know to get where you need to be." He grinned. "Sounds simple enough so far, right?"

"Beginning to think that maybe a few extra bionic eyes might be a good idea," Jaime muttered. "How do **you** manage to do all that?"

"Oh, I'm usually not acting alone," Ginsburg said. "I have a team to back me up. When we have time to prepare the site, we plant video surveillance and other sensors. When we're going in blind, we still have the live feeds from our camera rigs. And it's not my job to sort this out in the middle of an operation, that's what Nathan does back home. This one will be a little more low-tech than that, but you're also not walking into a firefight, so..." Ginsburg trailed off for a moment. "Mostly I just do what feels right and keep Plan B ready."

Jaime frowned. "Great."

"I could give you a lecture on threat assessment and situational awareness," Ginsburg said, "but basically: if it doesn't feel right, get Gracia and bail back to the suite. Better safe than sorry."

The elevator arrived with a soft pinging sound; Ginsburg got on and pushed the button for the sixth floor, with Jaime following before the doors closed.

"Exactly how nervous are you?" Ginsburg said. "Third grade book report, first date with the football captain, 'Oh my God oh my God I'm going to die'?"

Jaime looked at Ginsburg, her eyes conveying to him **exactly** how nervous she was. "Less that I'm going to die, more that I'm going to get Gracia killed if I screw this up," she said. "It's a lot of responsibility, and I don't think I can do it."

"You handled the mole, you'll be able to handle a couple of diplomats," Ginsburg said. After a moment, he reached under his jacket. "And if anyone does try to misbehave, you give them a taste of this." He retrieved a pistol-looking shape, though even Jaime could tell that this one wouldn't fire bullets; instead of a muzzle, its bulky body terminated in three vertical slots. "Have you ever used one of these?"

Jaime looked at it, but didn't touch it. "I don't even know what that is."

"It's a TASER," Ginsburg said. "Does that ring a bell?"

Jaime nodded. "Yeah, I've seen them on TV."

"And now you're looking at a real one," Ginsburg said. "This model hasn't hit the streets yet, but we got a few prototypes to test. Three probe cartridges means you can shock up to three targets. It's computer-assisted, so it won't deliver more juice than it has to, and it automatically figures out which electrodes to send power through if you hit someone with more than one pair. Dual laser sights, top and bottom, point and shoot. You really can't fuck it up. Go on, take it."

Jaime took the weapon from Ginsburg's hand gingerly, as if it could have gone off at any moment. "Why didn't Bledsoe give me this before?"

"Because the old man doesn't trust weapons that can't kill," Ginsburg said. "It's designed for subduing in a law enforcement situation, and it's good for dark alleys and single attackers, but if you take it into a firefight, you're up shit creek with a spoon for a paddle. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't feel very safe with this as my only weapon, either - three shots, poor range, I might as well be throwing rocks. Also, it's much bigger than your P239, so it doesn't conceal very well. But I had it lying around and you're not very happy with the guns, so I thought maybe you could get some use out of it."

Jaime gave Ginsburg an appreciative smile, and put it in her purse carefully - more carefully than she needed to. "Thanks, Ginsburg. I'm still not a fan of weapons, but one that isn't designed to kill people would be nice."

"Amen," Ginsburg said. "I went Air Force to save lives, you know. Now I'm a little upside down on that count. If there was a better tool for what I do than guns...hell, I would be first in line. But that's kind of the standard soldier answer. You get us on TV in a dress uniform, we all hate war and guns and violence." Ginsburg sighed. "I guess we're all in the wrong profession."

"I don't know, you guys seem to be all about saving lives," Jaime said.

"And who exactly do you mean by 'you guys'?" Ginsburg asked. "There's a couple ways I could read that."

"You, Sage, Calavera, Jordan, you know, your team," Jaime replied. "Your job is to come in and save me if things go wrong, and back me up on these save-the-world type missions."

Ginsburg kept mum for a few seconds. "Well, those are quickly turning into my favorite missions," he said. "I wouldn't mind if it was all we did, but we're not always just backing you up, Sommers. You probably wouldn't like the ops we do without you."

Jaime gave Ginsburg a shocked look. "...like what?"

Ginsburg looked like he was about to unload, but then he bit his lip and turned to look directly at Jaime. "...like the time I was caught on camera violating OpSec. I'm sorry. I've said too much and I can't tell you any more. You need to take that up with the old man."

Jaime stared at Ginsburg for a few seconds, debating what to do next. Instead of pushing for more, she settled on putting her right hand on his shoulder and simply saying, "Okay."

Ginsburg forced a smile. "Enough of that. You'll be fine. If this evening does go sideways, I'll storm the place and bail you out. Deal?"

Jaime smiled and squeezed Ginsburg's shoulder. "Deal."

* * *

_Character Profile: Antonio Pope_

Antonio Pope (né Edwards) was born in 1974 in Chicago. Although materially secure, his father's fight with alcoholism strained the marriage of his parents. Antonio quickly latched on to his uncle, Benjamin Edwards, as a role model - an ex-Special Forces soldier whose stories of both heroism and hardship during the Vietnam War left a great impression on Antonio. Antonio grew into a confident and bright young man, playing running back on his school's football team and graduating in 1991 with a 3.7 GPA. With his future wide open, Antonio decided to follow in his uncle's footsteps and enlisted in the US Army with the goal of going Special Forces, but did not get a slot to test out for the Green Berets.

Antonio was assigned to military police instead and resolved to make the best of that, beginning his stint at Fort Leonard Wood in 1992. He soon made a name for himself as both a competent investigator and the big guy you want by your side when breaking up a drunken brawl. Still, his career wasn't quite soaring - until he happened to become lead investigator into an oxycodone smuggling ring on base. Antonio went at it almost completely alone, staking out suspects even when officially off-duty and putting off arrests or even interviews until he was certain he had identified everyone involved. This proved to be a prudent move, as Antonio uncovered involvement from the base commander's wife as a courier. Antonio recognized the opportunity and went directly to the base commander with his findings.

Major General Philips was not enthusiastic about Antonio's visit, to say the least, but the young Sergeant would not be intimidated by the General's clout. When he walked out, he had the General's promise to recommend him for a transfer to the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, a team of elite military police investigators. In the subsequent drug bust, Antonio presented his meticulously collected evidence, leading to convictions for everyone involved in the smuggling - except for General Philips's wife. Antonio had carefully concealed her involvement and sworn everyone else to keeping mum about it on the strength of drawing the General's ire. Antonio got his transfer, and the General went down in flames in 2002 for witness intimidation when one of the convicted smugglers finally broke his silence.

Antonio rather enjoyed his time with the CIC, being able to bring his skills to bear on more dangerous game, as it were, but his heart was still set on a Special Forces assignment. Again, fortune failed him, between the three pillars of long assignments keeping him from applying, having to compete with younger and (on paper) more qualified applicants, and the same "needs of the Army" game that had kept him from getting a slot to begin with. His fortune finally changed when a Lt. Colonel Alexander Fort caught up with Antonio in 1998. Fort had taken note of Antonio's applications for Special Forces and had apparently served with Antonio's uncle in Vietnam, but what cinched the deal was Fort's shockingly detailed knowledge of how Antonio had gotten his transfer from General Philips. Fort told him that he appreciated a man who knew how to get a favorable angle on a tough situation, and that he was putting together a special operations team to track rogue arms deals in advanced military technology. Antonio's answer was a plain "Where do I sign?"

After almost a year of being cycled through various training regimens - one of which, Antonio would later realize, was a cultural immersion program run by the CIA - Antonio joined Fort's "Team Sierra" under the fresh identity of 2nd Lieutenant Antonio Pope. Fort immediately put the team to work tracking deals with prototype Russian SA-24 Grinch surface-to-air missiles through the Middle East and South Asia. Antonio proved to be a capable pointman, running down leads and busting down doors where necessary. It soon occurred to him that Team Sierra wasn't exactly legal; when Fort confronted him with that, Antonio flatly stated that he only cared about the mission and that he would gladly lie, steal or kill to protect his country.

Events came to a head during the terminal phase of the investigation when Team Sierra tracked a seller to a Pashtun village near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in early 2001, suspecting Al Queda involvement. On Antonio's go, the team assaulted the house on the outskirts of the village at night, killing two of the men inside on entry when they opened fire at the intruders. With the village woken up by the gunfire, Antonio needed quick results from the men taken prisoner; he had them lined up and told them that they had until the count of three to start talking before he would start executing them. None of them talked, the count reached three - and Antonio calmly aimed his gun at one of them and put two bullets through his skull. Seeing that Antonio wasn't bluffing, the remaining prisoners proved eager to talk to save their lives, allowing the team to locate a shipment of the missiles and have it destroyed with a drone-based airstrike. Still, Team Sierra was sharply divided on whether this mission could be chalked up as a win; most vocally, their intel specialist, Staff Sergeant Sandra Caulfield, quit the team on the spot during the debriefing. Fort intervened on Antonio's behalf, asking Caulfield to keep quiet about the events of the mission; out of loyalty to her boss, Caulfield did so. Still, Team Sierra had drawn too much attention to their operation and Fort disbanded it shortly thereafter. However, his thinking had come to accept Antonio's methods as justified and proper, and so Antonio was the only one he took with him when he started over, assuming the identity of Colonel Jonas Bledsoe to join Project Berkut as Director of Operations.

Antonio's personality reflects John Steinbeck's sentiment that the final weapon is the brain. Beyond his skills and his physical abilities, it's his utter ruthlessness that makes him a dangerous opponent. In his pursuit of the mission, there are no dirty tricks or violations of international law, just tactics that are more or less effective at achieving the desired outcome. Antonio has fully embraced this amoral view of his work and steadily trains himself to that ideal, hoping to achieve a clear-headed, dispassionate view of every situation. His use of words and body language is as efficient as his fighting moves, always aiming to go straight for the target. While there are lines Antonio probably would not cross - he is still human, after all - most people who know him agree that they're far beyond what is generally considered acceptable. Still, Antonio is opposed to "cruelty", which he defines as inflicting suffering out of proportion with the gain. Personal gratification is not an acceptable motivation to him; he acts for the mission and the greater good, and things like ego or revenge just get in the way of that.

As one of Berkut's most senior operatives, Antonio holds records for both successful operations and confirmed kills. His weapons of choice are a Gerber combat knife and his standard-issue P226 sidearm, but he is proficient with most small arms. At Berkut, he does not fit into the already convoluted org chart, being essentially Bledsoe's personal pet operative who is tasked with investigations, solo missions and - infamously - cleaning up after leaks and moles that threaten to expose Berkut. Most Berkut personnel assumes this involves shallow graves and bullets to the back of the neck, and Antonio's in no hurry to confirm or deny that.


	9. Chapter 9

Hello, faithful readers! Due to circumstances beyond our control (*cough* Gatac became totally addicted to Mass Effect 3 *cough*), this chapter took a little longer to write. We apologize for the inconvenience. By way of apology, we're not making you sit through tradecraft commentary wank this chapter.

* * *

After half a minute's ride, the elevator pinged open on what was almost the highest floor of the hotel, in a section given over almost entirely to the hotel's Grand Ballroom. Jaime found herself looking around, admiring the marble floors all around.

"Pay attention to the doors," Ginsburg said casually. "We'll do a few more walkthroughs to get familiar with the layout." He knocked on a nearby wall. "Old construction, makes for good cover." After a moment, he added "Just, you know, generally. Any questions so far?"

Jaime only started paying attention halfway through Ginsburg's piece. "Err...everything." She clocked the flash of frustration on Ginsburg's face and kept going. "I mean, I've had to keep an eye on a crowded bar or library before, but nothing where there might be people looking to shoot someone I'm supposed to be looking out for."

"Okay," Ginsburg said. "How about this? You're looking for people who don't belong. Loners that don't mingle, don't fit the crowd, people who don't do what you expect from them. Like...okay, did you ever TA a lecture and there was someone in the back row who wasn't chatting with their neighbour, some kid you didn't know was in the class? Or in the library...somebody who...didn't look like they were there to borrow a book, or do research, or whatever. You know. Odd men out."

"Or someone in the bar that's shoving people around and walking towards someone?"

"See?" Ginsburg said with a smile. "You're getting it. Only this time, you know who they might be coming for and it's well lit, and you're not trying to serve customers. Easy."

Jaime frowned. "And if I screw up, Gracia dies." She absent-mindedly tried to bite the nails on her right hand, but stopped when her teeth just bent the synthetic nails.

"You're not going to screw up," Ginsburg said. "I know you're nervous. But you can handle yourself. You've got good instincts and more experience than you realize. And all that aside, you've always got the emergency brake. If you feel it's unsafe, you get Gracia out of there. No questions asked. And I will be backing you up from the balcony, so if there's something hinky, I can check it out." He smiled again. "Jesus, enough of that. We'll be fine. Alright?"

Jaime might have stopped trying to chew her nails, but her hand hadn't moved from her mouth. "Can't you do it, then? I'll just stand to the side and guard the door or watch the monitors. This isn't just watching the crowd on a busy shift or punching one guy out with a half-dozen FBI agents behind me. If I screw up, Gracia **dies**, Ginsburg. I don't think I'm ready for this."

Ginsburg pondered his next words as they entered the ballroom with its attendant flurry of activity - about a dozen hotel staff members were busy setting up the tables. Sure, he could have told Jaime that the likelier threat was somebody kidnapping Gracia and holding her for ransom, but saying that out loud would probably not help. "You caught the mole," he said, finally. "You ID'd his partner coming into the store. You saw him drop the message. That's exactly the kind of attention to detail you can use here." After seeing that his words weren't penetrating Jaime's worried fog, Ginsburg had an idea. He scanned the room for a moment, then turned back to Jaime. "How many FBI agents are in the ballroom?"

"Huh?" Jaime quickly looked around the room, then turned back to Ginsburg and shrugged. "I don't know."

Ginsburg frowned. "That's because you didn't try, Jaime." He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her back towards the ballroom floor. "Really _look_ this time."

Jaime looked. At first, it all seemed too busy to focus on anything, but over the next few seconds, hunches built. Jaime followed them, scanning a few people in detail, and finally turned back to Ginsburg. "Three, I guess," she said before she stopped, turned back to the floor for a moment, then looked back at Ginsburg. "No, four."

Ginsburg nodded. "That's exactly right. How did you spot them? What are they doing differently?"

Jaime turned back to the floor and pointed at one man in hotel uniform, standing to the side and not helping with the setup. "He's in a ballroom uniform but not doing anything but watching what everyone else on the floor is doing. That one was easy." Then, she pointed to a woman struggling with a handful of forks. "And she's never set up a table in her life. She's going too slow and she's watching how the others are doing it. I don't think the hotel would send a fresh hire for the job, so I'm guessing she's an agent, too."

"Very good," Ginsburg said. "And the other two?"

Jaime pointed to a man in a dinner jacket walking the floor with a glass in his hand. "He's walked a circle around the room three times, and always looks at everyone's hands as he goes past them." Finally, she pointed to a woman in a t-shirt and jeans fiddling with a large video camera on a tripod up on the balcony. "And she was the hard one. I didn't get why the hotel would put a video camera all the way up on the balcony and pointed at the floor, but I'm pretty sure she's setting up some kind of surveillance camera."

"It's documentation so they can go through video of the crowd and pick out people later, actually." Ginsburg smiled. "You see? You've got this more than handled. You're like a damn bloodhound when you put your mind to it."

Jaime managed a small smile in return. "I guess so. But you'll be up top, helping me keep an eye on things and ready to jump in if things go bad?"

"Well, it's a pretty big drop and I forgot to pack my chute," Ginsburg joked. "But yeah, I'll be here, watching you watch Gracia's back. If anything does go wrong, I'll be here to help get you and Gracia out."

Jaime's smile finally made the leap to genuine. "In that case, I'll do my best."

Both Jaime and Ginsburg stood to the side and watched as the ballroom assembly continued. "Is there anything else we should be doing?" Jaime asked. "Watching for anything in particular?"

"No, not really," Ginsburg said. "Just look around and try to get a feel for the room: how it looks, what the angles are, how big it is. We'll walk around a little more later."

Jaime put her hands on her hips as she slowly surveyed the room in a slightly over-dramatized fashion, before turning back to Ginsburg with a grin on her face. "Done! What now?"

Ginsburg rolled his eyes. "See, Jaime, if you had any military experience, you would know better than to admit you've got nothing to do. You're all but forcing me to make up something to keep you busy."

"Just trying to be the go-getter in this top secret military conspiracy," Jaime quipped. She and Ginsburg stood by for a few more seconds before Jaime spoke up again. "So. You said you were in the Air Force?"

"Yes, for all of four years," Ginsburg said. "And I was the go-getter type, so I know how that tends to shake out. But it was a good time for me, really. I wouldn't change it for anything."

Jaime gave Ginsburg a confused look. "So...why did Bledsoe get a pilot to lead your team?"

Ginsburg swallowed a laugh. "I'm not a pilot. Plenty of people in the Air Force aren't. I was in Special Forces."

Jaime's confusion only increased. "Air Force...soldiers? Like, the SEALs?"

"Not exactly," Ginsburg said. "Pararescue." He grinned at that. "It's all a little complicated, but essentially, we're jump-qualified combat search and rescue specialists."

"How do you get to that from the Air Force?"

"We're **part** of the Air Force," Ginsburg said. "There's more to the Air Force than the flight line, but don't let them hear that. Anyway, we were the guys who dropped in when our people got lost in the wild. Pilots that went down over Alaska, your SEALs when they broke their ankle on a mission - didn't matter where, we airdropped in, stabilized them and made sure they got out. It was a really good job. Tough as hell, but worth it."

Jaime paused before asking her next question. "So...how did you end up working for Bledsoe, then?" She watched Ginsburg's pained expression and quickly cut in before he could respond. "I'm sorry, if it's too painful, you don't need to tell me."

Ginsburg put on another grin. "Oh, it was painful alright. Had a drop over Alaska, for an exercise, actually. My main chute didn't deploy right, and the backup, well, it keeps you alive but it's not a very comfortable landing. The wind carried me right toward a big pile of rocks and I didn't have enough control to avoid it. So I don't land as much as I smash against the ground. Well, long story short, I broke both my legs in more than one place. That meant my jump status got cancelled and I spent months recovering. The writing was on the wall that I wouldn't get my status back, so even if I stayed in the unit, I would've been piloting a desk from there on. The old man had a different idea, though. He told me I could be out there, pulling the fat out of the fire for his solo operatives. It turned out that the job was a lot more SEALs than Pararescue, but at least I got my legs fixed up in the process. And I got an expense account. So, that's the story."

"Did you get your legs..._fixed_?" Jaime tapped on her own right leg.

"Oh, no," Ginsburg said. "Just very good, very expensive surgeons. The bionic option was never on the table."

Jaime nodded. "Still, you have to be pretty grateful to Bledsoe, coming in and offering you a job doing what you wanted to do again. It was pretty lucky that he was looking for someone with your skills when you broke your legs."

Ginsburg's expression started at a frown when Jaime mentioned Bledsoe's name, and had dropped to a sneer by the time she finished. "Yeah, just like it was lucky for you that you were Anthros' girlfriend when you had your car accident," Ginsburg snapped back. Jaime's face flipped from a friendly smile to shocked and hurt in an instant, and Ginsburg quickly turned apologetic. "God, I'm sorry," he said, and looked down at the floor. "That - I didn't mean to say that. You just struck a nerve there, and that's still a little raw."

"I'll say," Jaime said, still reeling from Ginsburg's outburst.

"So, I don't feel very lucky," Ginsburg said. "It beats being a Chairborne Ranger, I guess, but honestly, I feel like I was plain screwed out of something I really loved, and I'd go back in a heartbeat if I could." Ginsburg's look returned to his feet. "And I'm - well, I'm sorry, again. I let the bitterness get the better of me, I didn't mean to snipe back at you like that. It's worse for you and I don't hear you bellyaching about it, so I guess it's just time for me to shut up."

Jaime put a hand on Ginsburg's shoulder. "It's okay, Ginsburg. I'm sorry I pushed."

"Antoine," Ginsburg offered. "Hey, I got into calling you Jaime, it's only fair."

Jaime cocked an eyebrow. "All right. I'm sorry, Antoine." They both stood there for a moment more before Jaime slid her hand off of Ginsburg's shoulder. "You know, Colonel Bledsoe would not approve of this kind of unprofessional behavior," Jaime said in a mock-official tone.

"**That's** your impression?" Ginsburg asked. "I can do better than that."

_While I would love to listen to that performance,_ Ruth cut in, _you two do have some work ahead of you._

"Right!" Jaime said.

"Wilco, Ma'am," Ginsburg replied, returning to proper form.

"So, what's next?" Jaime asked Ginsburg.

"We've got a lot of doors around here," Ginsburg said, sweeping the room with his gaze. "Let's find out where they lead."

* * *

With Pope having commandeered a cordon around the only truly probative part of the crime scene, the FBI crime scene techs continued their efforts to document, photograph and collect every bullet casing and shotgun shell in the yard while Caulfield sat on one of the loading docks and tried to make sense of what little information she had. Flipping open her binder, she pulled out the large legal pad she kept in her binder at all times and began paperclipping a few key pictures from the organized and tabulated collection of evidence in her binder: copies of Valdez's diplomatic ID photo, Gracia's ID, the mugshots of the criminals known to be involved - both arrested and dead - a picture of the ambush apartment at Sutter and Mason, one of the few pictures of the smashed-up embassy Jaguar the FBI techs managed to get out before Pope confiscated their cameras' memory cards, and even a picture of the yard she was sitting in. With the beginnings of her mental map created, Caulfield started to build connections, looking for the gaps and meanings in what had happened to find the motives and people behind it all.

Valdez to Gracia was obvious, as was the connection between the two bodies dumped in the South Basin marshes, the apartment they were living in, and the men arrested at the Sutter and Mason ambush. After a moment's thought, Caulfield switched to pencil for the line connecting those three pictures with the shipping yard ambush - not enough information yet for pen, but certainly enough suspicion for pencil. Soon-to-be-ex-Agent Ballard connected with Gracia, who connected with the Sutter and Mason ambush. Valdez connected with the Jaguar, which connected to the shipping yard, likely putting him at the shipping yard when it made its brief attempt at escape. After that, though, the connections stop, leaving Caulfield with two distinct loops with only one connection: the crashed Spanish embassy Jaguar. _Unless that's one very special car, I doubt that's what they were really after and what Valdez is really protecting, _Caulfield thought. Clicking her pen open again, she added a new note to the web: the mysterious case in the trunk of the Jag. She connected it to the Jaguar, and looked at the whole web again. The case was the only item on it that every single part of the web connected to that could possibly explain what was going on.

Caulfield added a few question marks to the "Mysterious Case" node for emphasis, and looked back up towards Pope's precious privacy screening. The entire threat to Valdez and his daughter revolved around what was inside that case, so the question wasn't whether she had to know what was inside, but how she could force Pope to tell her. Her attention followed one of the crime scene techs as he walked back to the evidence truck to log and store yet another bullet casing, and the sight of the truck gave her an idea. Smiling, Caulfield picked the pictures off of her binder one by one and carefully refiled them back into the individual folders inside the binder before zipping it closed and standing up. _Can't wait to wipe that smug smile off Pope's face - again_, she thought, smirking as she remembered Pope's rarely-seen "flustered" face.

* * *

Antonio Pope stood next to the wrecked car's trunk, hunched over the case inside. With steady hands, he rolled out his tape measure and put it next to the short side of the foam cutout. Satisfied that he had gotten a good measurement, his reflexively reached up to the bluetooth headset over his right ear and adjusted it slightly.

"Short side is ten point seven centimeters," he said. "Do you need any other measurements?"

"Not right now, Sir," came the voice of the lab tech. "I'll get this to Major Walker right away."

"Make it quick," Pope said. "We need to know what we're -"

"Agent Pope!" Caulfield called from beyond the partitions. "We need to talk!"

"Get on it," Pope said into the headset, then muted the call, closed the trunk and made his way around the plastic sheeting he had cajoled the FBI agents into setting up around the car. His look was met by Caulfield, wielding a small smile and waving around the wand of a completely silent Geiger counter.

"Thought I'd help with your dirty bomb, make sure your cordon is big enough," Caulfield said. After waving the wand around a few more times, she reattached it to the rest of the unit and tapped on the display. "Strange, it's not detecting **any** radiation. It must be one of those non-radioactive dirty bombs."

"You're obviously standing at a safe distance, then," Pope replied. "I do hope you're not here to threaten me with making a scene out of this, Sandra."

Caulfield dropped the coy look and got up in Pope's face. "You are obstructing a federal investigation and putting the lives of a diplomat and his teenage daughter at risk with your spy games **bullshit**. We both know there's no dirty bomb, but whatever it is you're hiding in there is the reason why all of this is happening, and I need to know the truth of what is going on if I am going to save Valdez and Gracia's lives. I don't give a shit what you and..._Bledsoe_ want with the case or what's in it - some new plague, a spy satellite, the White House waffle recipe, whatever it is, you two can **keep it**. All I need to know is, who is trying to kill a diplomat and kidnap his daughter to get it, and what are they going to do next?"

Pope looked at Caulfield. It was the kind of blank look that signalled him pondering whether this was an opportune time to make Caulfield disappear, to get rid of her piercing questions and stubborn drive to do the right thing. But after a second's deliberation, it turned into a small frown. As much as Pope wanted Caulfield out of his face, there would be too much fallout from disappearing her here in broad daylight - not to mention that trying to take her down head on was likely to get messy and loud. "Frankly, Sandra, we don't know what was in there, only that it's from a place that was wiped off the map," Pope said. "And yes, that makes us **exactly** as nervous as you think it does. This is bigger than Afghanistan, Sandra, and we're flying blind." Pope paused briefly to let that sink in. "I assume Valdez was in initial possession of the item, probably transporting it, and given that it flew under our radar, I'm inclined to think the people after him are the original second party of the deal, the only ones who knew what was going on. That's all the 'who' I have right now. What's next?" Pope shrugged. "There is only one set of footprints near the car, leading away. The gunmen didn't get to the car. We don't have Valdez's body. I think he's still on his feet and he's got what these people are willing to kill for. I assume they'll keep hunting him until they get what they want."

Caulfield narrowed her eyes and scanned Pope's face, trying to get a read on how much truth he was really letting on. His frown was all the response she needed. Caulfield smirked as Pope shifted from one foot to the other. "Is there anything in the car that tells you where he might be running to?"

"Just some blood inside," Pope said. "He's alive and ambulatory, but he is hurt. So, if we can establish an initial vector, there's a good chance he took shelter somewhere heading in that direction. However, that still leaves you with several blocks of buildings to search, and you probably don't have that kind of time."

"So, the best bet is to keep an eye out for him and keep the search going, but focus on protecting Gracia for when whoever this is goes after her," Caulfield said.

"That would be exactly what I would do," Pope said in an impatient tone of voice. "Now, if you're done violating a national security directive..."

"One more thing," Caulfield said, and smirked as the comment sent a twinge of irritation across Pope's face. "Is there anything that indicates where his pursuers might have gone, or where they came from?"

"Tire marks and a lot of brass," Pope answered. "I'm sure that'll be helpful when the police lab is done with them next week." He returned Caulfield's smart-aleck look. "Maybe your prisoners will be done talking to their lawyers by then, too."

Caulfield's phone rang from her pocket; the display on the front said "COOPER". She looked back up at Pope with the last volley of the smug look contest. "Maybe they'll be talking sooner than you think." She quickly turned and walked off, leaving Pope and his national-fucking-security secrets behind his privacy screens before she answered the call.

"What do you have for me, Cooper?"

"Everything," Cooper said. "Their boss is a Richard Earlmeyer - big deal in arms trafficking and other illicit transportation, to hear our man tell it. He's got a few warehouses in the area and more elsewhere, but he's operating out of South San Francisco for this, near the Harbor Way and Littlefield Avenue intersection. Expect about twenty guys, all armed to the teeth. He said he had more, but I figured I'd fill you in on the big news first." Cooper paused for a moment. "Of course, he's demanding a hell of a deal in exchange for all this."

"If he's willing to give up this Earlmeyer's connections and what they have him smuggling - _especially_ what's in this case - then I'd say that's enough for him to earn a new life in Buffalo," Caulfield said. "Lean on him and get the answers, Cooper."

"Uh, yeah, that's the thing," Cooper said. "He didn't ask for WitSec. He wants cash, a new ID...something he can take and disappear with, outside CONUS."

Caulfield raised an eyebrow. _Who the fuck owns this case that everyone's so afraid of? _"Tell him his ass is ours until he testifies at Earlmeyer's trial and all of his criminal buddies are behind bars, or we toss him out to deal with his boss' disgruntled clients on his own. After that, if he wants to leave the program, he's free to go."

"Uh huh," Cooper said. "How about your government friends? Think they can sweeten the deal?"

"It's better that we don't let them know too much," Caulfield replied, throwing a look back towards the privacy screens. "If we let on too much, my government 'friends' might just render our suspect to some Israeli hole."

"So, bright future prospects for him all around," Cooper said. "Not that I feel too sorry for him, but this sneaking around, turf war bullshit is grating."

"Welcome to the world of 'national security'," Caulfield said wearily, "where your friends are just as likely to stab you in the back as your enemies. Just get what you can out of him, I'll cover for you with Pope."

"Got it," Cooper said. "And you keep an eye out for enemies...and friends. I don't want to break in a new boss, you know."

"Been doing this for ten years and I don't plan on getting blindsided now. Good luck." Caulfield snapped the phone closed and called out on the radio for her team to meet her at the SUVs in five minutes. _Fifteen minutes for telephonic warrant, thirty minutes across the Bay with lights and sirens, twenty minutes before the ball starts. Better get the warrant on the way._

* * *

Pope fought the urge to follow Caulfield and eavesdrop on her conversation. That came down to two reasons: one, he did not believe that anything Caulfield could find out would help him get his hands on the item. Two, he had no inclination to give her yet another reason to get in his face and vocally disapprove. So he turned around and walked back to the car. In his hand, he held his cell phone, ready to check in with Wolf Creek the second Caulfield was out of earshot. He was sure that, given a chance, she would do her best to eavesdrop on him and pick out the parts she could use to inconvenience him. It really gave him a better appreciation for the universe's sick sense of humor, that he was here working alongside the singular human being who excelled at irritating him. He tried to clear his mind a little, to not let Caulfield's past actions and current attitude push him into making mistakes; but on top of dealing with her, he was mired in both restrictive regulations and an operation that bore more than a passing resemblance to a snipe hunt. This was an unacceptable state of affairs. He needed a way forward, and he hoped that Major Walker had come up with something useful in the meantime. Something that would finally get him the right leverage on the troublesome FBI agent and put her in her place for good.

To pass the wait, Pope crouched down beside the mangled driver's door, checking around the seat again. Pope suspected that, being in the dire straights he was, Diego Valdez would have kept everything he had in close reach, in case he had to leave his car behind. It certainly was what Pope would have done in that situation. With that in mind, he stuck his hand under the driver's seat, checking for a secret stash. When his first attempt struck out, he tried to wedge his arm in a little further. In that process, his eyes fell on something lying underneath the brake pedal, a little black gadget almost lost in the darkness against the carpeting. Pope reached for it and pulled out a cell phone, which quickly found a new home in his pockets. _Enjoy those little digs you're getting in on me, Sandra,_ he thought. _Soon enough, you'll be calling me 'Sir' again._

* * *

Richard Earlmeyer sat in the passenger's seat of his SUV and tried to zone out his surroundings. The SUV was racing through the Oakland docks; its suspension was utterly unable to keep the ride smooth, and every sudden twist and turn felt like it could flip the truck, even if it only succeeded in tossing the contents of Earlmeyer's stomach from side to side. Behind him, screams came from shot-and-ran-over Branson, who begged for painkillers and medical care and someone to hold his hand and someone who would take care of his ex-wife, all at the same time. The two mercs sharing the backseat with him seemingly took turns freaking out and frantically trying to calm the situation down. At last they pulled to a stop in front of his warehouse; Earlmeyer wasn't too proud to pop the door as soon as the SUV's driver hit the brakes, all but jumping out at the first opportunity. He didn't exactly run, but he walked briskly, shouting orders all the while.

"Everyone inside!" he hollered, "and get that man some first fucking aid!"

It was the right time for that self-loathing feeling to rise to the top, the idea that somehow, Earlmeyer had really had this whole mess coming. In his years as a smuggler, he had always favored the safe thing, invested and acted sensibly and taken care to minimize his risk. With those last clients, however, he had felt the bad mojo from the moment they called him. Body-sized cargo, rush delivery, transcontinental, and they utterly refused to reveal anything about the nature of the shipment. And then they demanded zero probability of interception, too, which consigned the deal to diplomatic channels - channels that Earlmeyer had, but tried his best not to overuse. For all he knew, he was shipping a briefcase nuke into the United States; that the client was willing to pay accordingly didn't reassure him in the least. Yes, if it all went off without a hitch, it would have been insanely profitable - so much so that Earlmeyer could well have retired on it - but it also made him dead certain that these were the kind of people who didn't take failure well at all. A sane Richard Earlmeyer would have said "No, thank you" and gone on with business as usual, but he took the damn job; not because of simple greed, but also because this spoke to his pride, his ability to organize and get things done no matter how involved. A successful job like this wouldn't have just ensured his financial security, it would have also been the crowning achievement of his wheeling & dealing career. And that, Earlmeyer had to admit to himself, had pushed all of his buttons in just the right way to make him say "Yes, of course."

His ruminations were interrupted when one of his mercenaries cleared his throat; Earlmeyer looked around to find himself alone outside, with the merc in the door.

"You good, boss?" the merc asked.

"Is everyone accounted for?" Earlmeyer said.

"Yes, boss," the merc said. "We're waiting for you inside."

"Good," Earlmeyer said. He took another breath and ran his hands through his hair as he grasped wildly for a way out of this shit situation until he latched onto an idea. An absolutely insane long-shot of an idea, but circumstances being what they were, it was his only out. "I'm good. Let's do this."

Inside the warehouse's loading dock, the screaming was audible again, yet no longer quite as unbearable as in the cramped confines of the SUV. Branson was laid up on a flat pallet, and two of the mercs were busy putting pressure on his various wounds while several more were busy scavenging medical supplies from the warehouse's stocks. _Well, at least they're good at first aid,_ Earlmeyer thought. _Too bad, really._

"He needs a doctor," the merc next to him said.

"We don't have the time," Earlmeyer replied. "I honestly wish we did."

"Boss, listen, we can drop him off at the ER and get away," the merc said. "You know he won't talk."

"No, I don't," Earlmeyer said. "But that doesn't matter. They've already got enough of us in custody, somebody eventually talking is no longer a problem. What I can't risk is getting tailed back here before we leave." He spoke up to address the few idle mercs. "Get those trucks inside now! I don't want any ghetto birds spotting us!"

Three mercs split off and scrambled for the exit; Earlmeyer turned back to the merc beside him. "Why are you still standing here?" he asked.

"I was the one who planned the meeting with Valdez," the merc said. "I take full responsibility for the outcome of that."

"Alright," Earlmeyer said. "Full responsibility for what? That this crazy dago motherfucker has a lucky streak wider than my aunt's ass?" Earlmeyer forced a chuckle. "You're unlucky, not stupid. I'm not gonna shoot you, don't worry. What's your name?"

"Boss?" the merc asked.

"I asked you your name," Earlmeyer said. "We're having a conversation. It puts me at a rhetorical disadvantage when I don't know your name. I will take it as given that you don't like that I don't **already **know your name, but what can I say, I don't and I'm trying to meet you with a certain amount of courtesy here. So, please. What's your name?"

"Benjamin Trask, boss," the merc said.

"Ah!" Earlmeyer said. "I remember that. Ben from - I want to say MARSOC?"

"You got it, boss," Trask said.

"Right, Ben from MARSOC, here's the deal," Earlmeyer said. "If you really want to get Branson medical attention, it has to wait until after we've cleared out. We'll move as fast as we can, for all the good that will do for our dying swan over there, because I don't want to stay here any longer than we have to - actually, hang on." Earlmeyer turned to the crowd again. "The rest of you," he shouted, "go grab a dozen carbines and all the loaded mags you can find! Come on! Let's see some hustle here, gentlemen!" Earlmeyer turned back to Trask. "You won't see us again, I can't tell you our escape route, you'll be taking your chances with the FBI's manhunt. In short, you'll be fucked, and that's if we succeed. If we don't, well, we're all very dead, I just want to emphasize that again. Now, Ben, you got a choice. You can go 'devil dogs OORAH!' and stick with your buddy Branson, which I think is very honorable and very stupid, or you can come with us and fight for your shot at that mojito, which incidentally gives all your buddies better odds at getting the fuck out of this mess alive. Now. I've got to make a phonecall, so you go and explain that choice you all have to the others." Earlmeyer tapped his holstered pistol. "If nobody wants to stay, you should make sure Branson doesn't die alone. I didn't serve but I'm pretty sure that's the considerate thing to do."

Trask simply nodded. "Yes, boss."

Earlmeyer tapped the touchscreen on his smartphone to bring up his contact list; having about half of the Bay Area in there meant that even 14 groups of people was still too much to find who he wanted instantly, and he briefly wondered how much time he had spent with that damn rolodex back in the day just keeping everything straight and up to date. Finally, he found his contact and made the call. After a few seconds with a bubbly pop song as hold music, a young woman answered.

"White Tie Event Management, you're speaking to Jennifer White," she said.

"Hey Jenny," Earlmeyer said. "Rick here."

"Oh, hello, Mr. Earlmeyer," White said. "Was...was the payment late? I'm sorry, I told Kyle that you always get paid first but he's new and -"

"Jenny," Earlmeyer said, "I don't care about your piss-poor payment history, I don't care that you keep hiring your boyfriends, so leave me out of that, pretty please. Just answer me a question. Are you working the reception for the Spanish Embassy at the Fairmont today?"

"Mr. Earlmeyer, I'm sorry, you know I couldn't tell you if we did," White said.

"How many favors have I done for you, Jenny?" Earlmeyer said. "Haven't I been a considerate business partner? Haven't I been **generous**?"

"Mr. Earlmeyer, I can't thank you enough for what you've done for us, but..."

"You're twenty large in the red, Jenny, and if you tried to keep working for that with just your mouth I'm pretty sure my dick would fall off," Earlmeyer said. "So how about you shut up. Now, let me rephrase that. I **know** you're working the reception. How many people are you sending?"

"Fifteen, Mr. Earlmeyer."

"That'll do," Earlmeyer said. "Twelve of your guys are staying home, food poisoning from your last company dinner or whatever the fuck excuse you think will fly, I'm not picky. I'm sending you replacements. They'll need the paperwork and uniforms. You do not ask them any questions. If the cops come knocking, they looked totally legit and you hired them specifically as emergency replacements a month ago. You have twenty minutes until they're there. In return, I forget everything you owe me. We'll be square, you'll never have to see me again. That's the deal. Did you get all that?"

"Please, Rick," White said, "I'm good for what I owe you, I swear, but that's impossible! Even if I could get them in, twenty minutes isn't nearly enough, and -"

At that point, a gunshot echoed in the background; Earlmeyer found himself wincing.

"Rick?" White shouted through the phone. "Rick, what was that? Are you alright? What's happening?"

"Jesus K-rist!" Earlmeyer shouted. "Would it kill you inconsiderate assholes to use a silencer? Sorry, Jenny. That was one of my guys. Had to give him a medical discharge."

"Oh my God..."

"This is what happens to people who fuck up," Earlmeyer said. "Now. You can either instantly clear your debts, or I will leave 20 keys of heroin in your walk-in and call the fucking DEA. So, is what I'm nicely asking you to do still **impossible**?"

"No," White whispered. "I'll...I'll do what I can."

"Less whining, more writing," Earlmeyer said. "I'm sending my guys over now. See that you're ready when they get there."

Earlmeyer killed the call and lowered his cellphone.

"Listen up, people, tactics huddle!" he shouted. "We've tried being sneaky and we've tried being reasonable. Didn't work because Valdez is apparently completely fucking cuckoo. But no matter what that motherfucker does, we know where his daughter is. I'm done fucking around. We're gonna get her for real and we'll make her scream until daddy comes running. If you think that's harsh, just remember that we tried everything else first. I invite you all to show Mr. Valdez how unhappy you are with his conduct when we meet him." He took a breath for emphasis. "Gentlemen, let's crash a party."

* * *

Diego Valdez stood behind one of the empty units in a commercial development area to the west of the crash site, desperately trying to kick in the back door. It was the first door Diego Valdez had ever had to kick in, and his inexperience showed. Once, twice he rammed the heel of his leather shoe against the wood, almost falling over the second time from a sudden lack of balance. His left hand held a deathgrip on the pistol, and without thinking he almost raised it a few times to try and shoot out the lock. Finally, after no less than five kicks, the lock cracked free of the door proper, allowing enough play for the door to fling open. Valdez stumbled inside as quickly as he could, spied a carton box full of printer paper and planted himself on it. Hunched over with his left elbow on his knee and his head hanging down, it felt like only now that he realized how out of breath he was. He hurt all over - the crash hadn't been kind to him at all - and his injured right arm was no longer quite responding to his brain's orders. This became painfully obvious when he tried to move it to check the bandage; after a few seconds and a fresh injection of hot agony, Valdez realized that he could no longer lift his right arm at all.

"Pinche **idiota**!" he shouted, mostly to himself, and rose quickly from where he was sitting, an act that had him steadying himself against the next wall when the dizziness came. Defeated, he slumped back down onto the box. His eyes were forced shut, squeezing a few precious tears onto his cheeks. He motioned with his left arm to wipe his face, then seemed to finally realize he was still holding on to the pistol and slammed it down on the box next to him. Relieved of the weapon for the moment, he raised the sleeve of his jacket to his face and wiped the tears off. Everything had gone wrong, over and over again; no matter how much he fought, nothing seemed to work out. Valdez cursed the day that he had agreed to smuggle the case for Earlmeyer. What was it about this device that made it so valuable? Valdez had it cradled in his right hand with the help of the sling, where its coldness helped numb the pain a little bit. He still didn't know what was actually inside it, but the whirring sound of a miniature compressor and the elaborate electronic locking mechanism were sure signs that it would be a really bad idea to force it open. And, truthfully, it didn't matter. It was dangerous. Richard Earlmeyer could not have it. That was the end of Valdez's line of thought. It was hard to keep his mind focused on anything now; his ears were still ringing from the impact, and his vision was so blurred that he struggled to read a large sign posted next to the door he had come in through. Worse, every movement of his head sent his sense of balance wavering. Valdez felt like a boxer that had lost the first and second round badly; he was still in the fight, but nobody would have picked him as the winner.

The stew of thoughts in his head came back to Gracia every few seconds. His daughter, his one and everything, she couldn't be with Marisol because...because they all agreed that she had to focus on getting better. Valdez struggled to impose focus on his thoughts. Gracia. She was in danger. Earlmeyer didn't have her yet. She had to be at the hotel, at the reception by now. And with everything Valdez had done, he had given Earlmeyer a damn good incentive to strike at her to get to him. So, Earlmeyer would go there and try to hurt her, kidnap her - something. A fresh wave of pain shot up from Valdez's arm; he grit his teeth, losing a few more tears. His body told him to lie down and let it all go, but he couldn't stop here. All of this was on him and his cowardice: how he had gotten into smuggling in the first place for petty money, how he had accepted this madman Earlmeyer's job without thinking beyond saving his own skin, and now, how he had run away from the mess and left his daughter in the line of fire. No longer. He **had** to step up and protect his daughter, no matter what. And so, Diego Valdez got up slowly from the box he was sitting on, waiting for the dizziness to stop this time. He had almost worked up the strength to start walking when he remembered the gun he had put down. He grabbed for it and haphazardly tucked it into the front of his pants. Valdez's plan was simple: find Richard Earlmeyer at the hotel and shoot him. Then his daughter would be safe and everything would finally be alright.

* * *

Back at the Fairmont's diplomat suite, Jaime found herself holding up the new dress over the new suit - **her** new dress and suit - in the mirror of the second bathroom. She had never figured apricot as being her color, but the damn thing was probably expensive enough for that to not matter. The dress would probably be gorgeous on her, but she instead found herself wishing she could keep the straight-cut black suit on for the rest of the evening - and not just for practical considerations. Still, Jaime knew that blending in was more important than her comfort, and after checking the door was locked, started undressing.

After harnessing herself into the black lace bra (with enough superstructure underneath to keep weather balloons lifted and separated, Jaime thought with a roll of her eyes) and sliding on the equally translucent bottom half of the underwear, she glanced up at the mirror and saw herself in her underwear for the first time in...weeks. She still looked mostly like herself, no new moles, marks or scars, she didn't look nearly as much like a hulking gorilla as she feared, but she still felt uncomfortable with the sight of her body and couldn't put her finger on why - until she looked at her right shoulder. Right there, where the silicone smartskin met her real skin, was a slight seam. Minuscule unless you were looking for it, but once Jaime saw it she couldn't take her eyes off of it, and when she looked at her legs, right below the lace border of the underwear was a similar seam on each leg. As Jaime ran her left finger - **her** real finger - along the seam on her right shoulder and stared at where she ended and the prosthetic began, she started to breathe more heavily and felt her head start to spin as blood rushed to her head. She sat down on the rim of the bathtub and gripped the edge tightly as she took a deep breath and got the rolling feelings in her stomach under control.

After a few more breaths, Jaime stood back up, ran her hands through her hair and started to slide into the bright orange dress - but did so facing away from the bathroom mirror. Once the dress was on and zipped up, she held her breath as she turned around to see how she looked. The dress fit perfectly and did, in fact, look gorgeous on her, but she didn't exhale until she saw that the wide shoulder straps on the dress covered the seam on her right shoulder perfectly. Having conquered the underwear and dress, Jaime moved on to tackling the last part of the ensemble - the bright orange foot-crushing heels. They weren't torture-rack tall, but as Jaime tried to squeeze her foot into the right heel for the third time, she wondered if Ginsburg had confused the physical dimensions of her foot with her shoe size.

Jaime's attempt to subvert the laws of footwear physics in her favor was interrupted by a knock on the bathroom door; Gracia's voice came through slightly muffled by the solid piece of wood between her and Jaime.

"Are you getting ready, Agent...Jaime?" Gracia said.

Jaime opened the door, shoes in hand. "These shoes are defeating me," she said, with a smile on her face. "I could use some help."

Gracia smiled back at her. Her lips were glossy with a bare hint of sparkle, and Jaime noted a subtle gradient to her eyeshadow that wouldn't have been out of place on a movie starlet. Her hair was done up in artfully arranged curls, also with a faint amount of sparkles, and her midnight blue cocktail dress accentuated her developing physique without slipping into the obscene. More notably, she could now almost see eye to eye with Jaime; a quick glance downward showed that she was standing on higher heels than her bodyguard.

"Let me see if I can help you," Gracia said, and motioned for Jaime to take a seat on the bed outside. "They should probably teach us this in school," she added.

Jaime sat down and tossed the shoes on the floor in front of Gracia. "You mean they don't teach you this in the fancy prep school your father has you in?" she asked with a smirk.

Gracia crouched down to the floor, carefully managing the hem of her dress to hide her underwear. "No," she said. "But they gave us a presentation about what to do if you get kidnapped." She grabbed a shoe with one hand and Jaime's foot with the other and squeezed Jaime's toes into the shoe as she kept talking. "You understand, they have armed security and many cameras everywhere, and five years without an incident, but the threat is always there." Gracia sighed. "I wonder if I would feel better if I had paid more attention then."

Jaime sighed in response. "Not really. Take it from me, practicing for something bad happening and thinking about it is a whole world of difference from when it actually happens." She gave Gracia a warm smile as Gracia dropped Jaime's foot. "But you are doing great - much better than me, at least."

Gracia raised an eyebrow at Jaime's self-deprecating answer; she clearly wasn't done figuring this woman out. "I am wondering, Jaime," Gracia said, "how you will go from that to telling me about how your five years in diplomatic security makes you perfect for the job and that I don't have to worry about anything. That is usually how people try to reassure me."

Jaime kept the smile going. "Oops. Well, I think you've figured out that I don't really have five years in diplomatic security." _Tread carefully, Jaime,_ Ruth whispered in her ear. _Don't blow your cover._

Gracia smiled back. "Yes, you are too young for that," she said. "I don't doubt you, Jaime. I don't worry about myself. I am in good hands here. But my father..." The smile faded. "I heard they found his car, and there was blood inside. I keep thinking he must be okay, but - they should have found him by now. I'm afraid, and it's silly, but I'm afraid they'll never find him. I'm afraid he won't be back and I won't see him again. I don't want to lose my father, Jaime. He's all I've got."

Jaime slid off the bed onto her knees with Gracia and wrapped her arms around her. "It's okay. It's not silly, you love him and you want him to be all right."

In Jaime's arms, Gracia let out a big sigh. "Do you think Sandra can find him?" she asked.

Jaime held Gracia out at arm's length and spoke directly to her, like she would Becca. "Agent Caulfield is certainly the smartest and most capable FBI agent I have ever known," she said, her eyes not wavering from Gracia's. "If anyone can find your father, she can."

Gracia put on another smile. "Well, she's certainly proved herself already," she said. She softly brushed Jaime's arms from her shoulders as an inquisitive look was added to the smile. "So, Jaime, since you mentioned it before: exactly how much experience **do** you have?" she asked.

"Err..." Jaime said, and then weighed her options. On one hand, she could maintain the increasingly improbable fiction that she was, in fact, an experienced diplomatic security agent. On the other hand, she could simply tell Gracia as much of the truth as she could and reassure her in her own way. In the end, it was no contest. "About twelve hours," she admitted. "I've never done anything like this before in my life. I don't have the full picture quite yet -" Gracia's face said 'What?' as Jaime's turned solid and determined, "- **but** I am learning fast, I have an excellent team backing me up, and while I might have never done this job before, believe me, I am no stranger to having to protect someone."

Jaime heard Ruth sigh through the radio link. _Fine. You're on your own with this part._ _Good luck._

Gracia seemed flustered for a moment as Jaime waited to see what she would do next. "How did you...what about earlier today?" Gracia asked.

Jaime couldn't help but smile a bit at that. "Like I said, I'm learning fast, and I can handle myself. I have a great teacher - the best - and a great team backing me up." Jaime's friendly smile was joined by a new edge: a certainty that she would see the job through. "Believe me, Gracia. I will not leave your side tonight. If you or I think things are off, we will high-tail it out of there as fast as possible, and I will not let **anyone** hurt you. I **promise**."

"...I believe you," Gracia said. An abortive laugh escaped her mouth. "No, more than that. I like you. I don't know many honest people. At least, with you, I am taking my chances with someone who cares - and despite today's...excitedness, I am still in one piece."

Jaime smirked and gave Gracia a light shove. "That's right, I **did** kick that FBI agent's ass."

"You found him and knocked him down with one blow - that **is** a strong point in your favor," Gracia agreed. "Now, get back up on the bed or we'll miss the event."

Jaime scrambled up from the floor and sat down on the bed while Gracia retrieved the wayward shoe; the diplomat's daughter motioned for Jaime to straighter her leg and point her foot straight forward. With her right hand holding Jaime's ankle, she maneuvered the shoe on lengthwise and finally managed to slip it on, Jaime's heel sliding easily into place, and the second shoe went on just as easily.

"See?" Gracia said, standing up. "There we go. Shoes like that might need someone else to put them on for you."

Jaime took a look at Gracia, and smirked. "Oh, well." The smirk turned into a giggle. "We'll have to take care of that, I guess."

"Take care of what?" Gracia said. "What are you laughing at? What's so funny, Jaime?"

Jaime motioned toward the mirror. "That dress really shows off lint really well," she said, covering her mouth as she stood up.

"_Joder!_" Gracia mumbled to herself, quickly swallowing the cuss. She hurried over to the mirror, inspecting her back for signs of rug lint. "Damn it," she said, brushing off the worst of it with her hands.

"I'll see if one of the FBI agents has a lint roller," Jaime said. Making her way over to the apartment door, she stuck her head out and politely asked the agent standing guard to see if he could find a lint roller, then returned to the bed while Gracia continued trying to gather the lint by hand. "I guess we should be thankful if the greatest threat we face tonight is static electricity," Jaime joked.

"Do not laugh too loudly," Gracia replied. "It's all over your butt, too."

"Ah, but this is where my experience in risky situations comes in handy," Jaime said as she walked over behind Gracia and plucked a few balls of fuzz off of her dress. "Brightly colored dresses don't show off light colored carpet lint nearly as much."

Gracia gave Jaime an exaggerated look of disdain. "I'm so glad you're here, Jaime," she said. "My wardrobe already feels much safer."


	10. Chapter 10

Welcome to another exciting round, sports fans! Here's the next chapter, plus a commentary on the smokewagons, hog legs and heaters we left out of our previous commentary on the topic. (Guns, for those of you who don't _habla_.) Enjoy!

* * *

Caulfield and her team pulled up at the lot in front of Richard Earlmeyer's base of operations, inadvertently retracing his arrival a good half hour before. Caulfield was armed with a phone warrant and four other FBI agents; that would just have to do. Long-past training filled her head as she pulled a ballistic vest over her suit and checked her gun. Securing the perimeter, checking for sentries, a stealthy approach, violence of action through a well-prepared explosive entry...all those good things she didn't have time for. They'd just have to wing the entry through the front door and hope for the best. She took point without a word, and the team fell in behind her. She jogged toward the front door, gun pointed down and eyes sweeping up to check for snipers out of reflex. After covering the distance of the open lot, they stacked up at the door, and Caulfield took a final breath - this was the point of no return.

At her nod, the agent with the breaching shotgun fed three shells into the hardened door lock, blowing it completely out of the door. A swift kick swung the metal door aside, and again Caulfield took the first steps into a new situation. The loading dock behind the door was a mess of opened crates and discarded plastic wrap, with a bloody trail leading from the door to a pallet. Caulfield took everything in as she moved further forward, her gun's muzzle sweeping the wide open space in search of a target. Finally, she reached the pallet and stopped, with the other agents fanning around to build a perimeter. One called out "Clear!", then another, and Caulfield lowered her gun. At her feet, underneath plastic sheeting, laid a bloody corpse.

"Spread out!" Caulfield shouted. "I need this place searched top to bottom!"

"You got it," one of the agents replied. Caulfield didn't check to see who it was; the dead body was a more urgent matter. Caulfield quickly pushed her rifle onto her back and took a knee, ripping the sheeting away. Professional as ever, she checked for a pulse on the body and found none; given the pool of blood on the floor, it would have been a miracle to see the man still alive. Caulfield quickly pulled out a pair of latex gloves, pulled them over her hands and started checking the body. His legs were badly shot up and mangled, but had been tied off in a rather haphazard manner to staunch the bleeding; the duo of gunshot wounds straight to the middle of his chest was a likelier cause of death. She pulled his shirt open to get a better look at the wounds and found a Globe & Anchor tattoo sitting on top of the man's right pec.

"Marine or poser?" Caulfield muttered, still inspecting the body; the agent that still stood next to her to guard against the off chance that the raid turned into an ambush turned to look at her.

"Sorry, didn't catch that," he said.

"Is he a Marine or a poser?" Caulfield said out loud, looking up the agent. "Good physical build, medium reg haircut, so my guess is he's legit, or at least used to be. The tourniquets on his legs are too tight, but it's the kind of first aid soldiers would try. He made it from the firefight all the way here and then they killed him - he was slowing them down, I guess, but look at this" - she pointed to the discarded foil packets of sterile wound dressings - "they tried to help him. They wanted to save one of their own...but they ran out of time, and whatever they're after is more important than any one of them, so their backs are probably against the wall. And the guys we nabbed are all ex-military. I'm guessing the ones who are still with Earlmeyer are, too. So, he's hiring people who can handle themselves, but as team players - people who follow orders. Where did he find so many of them?"

"Craigslist?" the agent offered, aiming for a quick joke.

"We'll look into that later," Caulfield said. "What else do we have? Crates full of guns, a lot of them are missing." She shook her head. "So, Earlmeyer and his men are headed off to another firefight and they've got nothing left to lose. We have to figure out where they're going, because whatever they're planning next probably doesn't involve asking nicely."

Caulfield hauled herself back to her feet and jogged deeper into the warehouse, past the opened crates strewn about the loading dock. The labels were unhelpfully alphanumeric, but each was tagged with a QR barcode. Agent Eaton saw his boss jangling past and hustled to catch up with her, an bright orange device in his hand.

"You know what this is, boss?" Eaton asked.

"Laser scanner, probably for the QR codes on the crates," Caulfield replied flatly.

"Not just any scanner, but an encrypted scanner for reading encrypted QR codes, like Mr. Earlmeyer used here," Eaton said. "Without this, those stickers are useless."

"But we do have it, so..."

"Well, that crate" - Eaton pointed to a small wooden box tipped on its side - "read like a townhall meeting at a small Swiss village. My guess is high-end watches - small, light, valuable. The one over there was rare earths, platinum, iridium, rhodium, stuff like that. Only 150 pounds or so, but worth over four million dollars. There are some gold bricks over in another crate, but he didn't take any of those - too heavy, I guess."

"And the giant walk-in safe?" Caulfield asked, pointing at it as they walked past.

"Completely cleaned out," Eaton said. "According to the inventory, that was full of plastic containers labeled as containing bearer bonds, all sorts of currency, and a dozen small boxes each just tagged with a description and a flash drive brand. I figure he ripped off his clients and ran, but what's up with the flash drives?"

"Cash, bonds and metals get him funds now, and stolen info gets him safety from his clients and picked up and protected by the CIA or someone else as an asset," Caulfield said. She answered Eaton's curious look with a "leave it be" stare. "Another life, Nick. Any weapons missing?"

"Yes, they ripped open a couple of crates," Eaton said. "I'll need a few minutes to get you a list of what's missing, though. They made a hell of a mess of it."

"Do it fast," Caulfield ordered.

"Yes, Ma'am," Eaton said, rushing off to make sense of the chaos around them.

Caulfield jogged up the steps to the warehouse's office, her rifle still held at the ready and tactical vest jangling with each step. Inside, three other FBI agents were turning the office upside-down. The cheap filing cabinets were eviscerated, their drawers hanging out, leaving the beaten 1960's era formica-topped desk to Caulfield.

"Pictures taken of the desk surface, medium and close scale?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," one of the agents replied.

Caulfield rifled through the papers on the desk to being with, sorting them into stacks - most were simple items received or items sent notices or receipts for services rendered, but with names she recognized from DEA, ATF and FBI bulletins, most with notices like "armed and dangerous," "vast criminal ties," and "do not approach". The rest of the mess on the desk was simply loose paper notes with cryptic or meaningless notes that went into a stack of their own. The surface of the desk sorted for processing, Caulfield gingerly opened the drawers one by one. Aside from the standard collection of office supplies, the only items of note were a half-consumed bottle of high-end whiskey, a half-empty box of .45 ACP ammunition, and a locked cash box. A borrowed prybar later, the box's cheap lock gave way to reveal rolls of bills, bound with thick rubber bands and each marked with a dollar amount. Caulfield's quick mental arithmetic came up with a grand total of $22,175, and space for at least five or ten grand more. _Probably almost exactly ten grand, _Caulfield thought, remembering the amount Barrett confessed to taking to turn the other way while Valdez snuck out.

The search was interrupted by a ringing phone; Caulfield recognized it as the network operator's default jingle, but the muffled sound proved hard to locate. It was only when she grabbed a nearby trash bin and emptied it out on the floor that the phone saw the light of day again.

Caulfield cautiously grabbed the phone; the display read "Valdez". She quickly tapped on the screen to answer the call. "Mr. Valdez, this is Special Agent Sandra Caulfield from the FBI. What is your situation? Are you injured?"

"Your concern is touching, Sandra," came Pope's bemused voice. "I'm afraid you have me confused with someone else, though. So, I take it you are at Mr. Earlmeyer's base of operations now?"

Caulfield ground her teeth together at Pope's smug response. "Yes. Where did you get the phone you're calling on? Earlmeyer left a smartphone behind, and when you called, it showed 'Valdez' on the caller ID."

"Mr. Valdez left more of a trace than I initially believed," Pope replied. "Tell me what you've found so far."

"Piles of paperwork," Caulfield replied. "It seems that Earlmeyer is very good at bookkeeping for his criminal enterprise. I need to know more about whatever it is you're not telling me if I'm going to have more context here."

"Considering neither of us knew about Mr. Earlmeyer when we parted ways, maybe we are equally clueless about the larger context," Pope replied. "Interesting that he would leave so much of his business simply lying around for you to find, though."

"One of his men is downstairs with two contact gunshot wounds to the chest," Caulfield said, "and it looks like Earlmeyer ripped off his clients for whatever valuables or guns they were storing here. I don't think he's coming back."

"If that was true, there wouldn't be a warehouse for you to search," Pope quipped.

"Not everyone throws their whole life in the incinerator to avoid a parking ticket like you do, Pope," Caulfield shot back. She started to shuffle through the stacks of notes for any clues to his whereabouts left behind.

"And I suppose that is why **you** were able to find him," Pope replied. "If you are done sniping at me, Sandra, then this conversation is over."

Caulfield stopped cold on a note: "White Tie Events - Debt settled". She snapped her fingers and turned to Agent Eaton. "White Tie Events, that's the company the Spanish contracted for tonight, right?"

"Uh...yeah," Eaton replied, not liking the implications.

"I'm already en route to the hotel," Pope said, drawing Caulfield's attention back to the call. "I'd appreciate it if you called ahead and told Agent Cooper to get out of my way. Update me if you find anything else. I would also appreciate if you could tell me what weapons he has with him."

"Not without a reason," Caulfield replied. "You either tell me what's going on here or play by my rules."

"Earlmeyer has a way into the reception," Pope said. "I know how people like him think. He's not escaping yet. He's making a final run."

"For **what**?" Caulfield shouted into the phone. "If he's trying to kill Valdez or his daughter, I need to know! If he's trying to steal something that's going to be there, I need to know what it looks like! The time for you and Bledsoe's cloak and dagger bullshit is **over**, Pope! Tell me what I need to know, or get the fuck off of my case!"

There was an audible breath on the other end of the line. "Sandra," Pope began, "do you **honestly** think I would be asking **you** questions if I knew everything I needed to know? I know he's going to the reception and I know that he's not there for the open bar. I assume your men can at least manage to pick out Valdez trying to enter the reception. That leaves all the other guests, but let us assume for the moment Earlmeyer is after the one guest we know is connected to this: Valdez's daughter. Does he want to talk to her, kidnap her, kill her? I don't know, Sandra. I'm not **psychic**. What I know is you need me up there stopping it. You can be indignant with me and Colonel Bledsoe all you want after the threat has been resolved."

Caulfield fumed at Pope through the cell phone. She could tell that he was half-bullshitting her, the problem was that she could also tell that he was halfway telling her the truth. "**Fine.** But you and your paramilitary goons step out of line and I will arrest all of you - and the old man can cram it up his ass."

"Less threats, more clearing my way," Pope said. Then he hung up.

"God-**dammit**," Caulfield cursed before keying down on her radio. "All tactical team members, report back to the SUVs. Earlmeyer is on his way back to the reception, possibly with the aid of the catering service. We leave in two minutes."

* * *

Jaime's experience over the last few minutes had chiefly been one of standing in someone's way. After half an hour nearly alone with Gracia, the first group of diplomats and bureaucrats trickled into the Venetian Room for the grand reception. Jaime tried to find a spot to watch Gracia and the whole room at the same time, but standing to the side only left her uncomfortably far from Gracia and feeling incredibly obvious. So, she settled for standing five feet or so from Gracia, head on a swivel - not exactly the least conspicuous position, but Jaime knew that Gracia was never out of her reach in case things went bad.

Gracia's job, to mingle and smile, seemed infinitely easier. Scanning the first few attendees, Jaime took in groups of faces and postures, trying to read the energy of a room much more sedate than her usual crowd. Nobody seemed dangerous or even agitated, and the opening salvos of the chatter around her - have you heard about so and so's godson, she's taking a hiking trip to the Adirondacks, let's discuss the trade deficit after dinner - seemed poised to put her to sleep. Waiters in what Jaime recognized as the hotel's uniforms darted between the socialites, carrying trays of champagne flutes that seemed to slowly empty all by themselves. Jaime didn't need to check her watch to know that the opening speech and the main crowd were still at least fifteen minutes away.

A tiny rumble from within her purse broke her concentration; with her eyes still watching over Gracia, she fumbled her cellphone out of the purse and glanced down at the screen to find a short message from Becca.

_OMG saw Shawn at B Library says he wants you back 4 volunteer work MAYBE a job later Whos the best lil sis? :D_

Jaime smiled at the thought of being back with her old friends. Then a thought struck her, and the smirk flipped to a frown before she looked down at the phone and tapped out her reply. _So you and Will went after all? He didn't tell me..._

There was a longer-than-usual pause before Becca's reply came back; Jaime glanced down to read it. _Oops. Sorry :( But he just wanted to work and I really had to go to the library and I'm REALLY sorry :( :(_

Jaime sighed and wrote a new message in bursts between looking over the husband and wife that approached Gracia. _You don't have to apologize to me, you have to apologize to Will. You'd better mean it, he really wanted to spend time with you._

Becca's reply came in as fast as it could be typed. _Jaime please I'm really REALLY sorry. :((_

Jaime shook her head slightly as she watched Gracia continue to make small talk. _Then say that to Will. We'll talk about this when I get home._

Becca's reply was to the point: _Okay fine. :( Sorry._

Jaime sighed, her eyes lingering on the phone for a few seconds. Even she felt bad about scolding Becca like this. _Becca, I'll NEVER leave you, ever, but you need to give Will a chance, okay? :) *hug*_

_...okay. :) *hug* Love you, Jaime._

Jaime smiled again as she tapped out a final message. _Love you too, Becca. Later._

As Jaime slid her phone back into her purse, being careful not to scratch it on either the gun or the taser, Gracia slid up next to her. "Any word on my father? Or any problems?"

"Only for my little sister," Jaime said with a smile. "So, where to next?"

Gracia nodded across the gradually filling room to the almost-empty bar. "The man and woman over there work with my father on promoting trade on the United States west coast. I should probably shake hands."

Jaime watched as the couple impatiently waved for the bartender to stop stocking the bar for the night's event and take their order. "They seem...nice," Jaime said as the wife rolled her eyes as the barman approached.

"They are horrible people, but they do a lot of business, so I have to smile for them." Gracia put on an exaggerated grin.

Jaime laughed. "Then let's go entertain the horrible people," she said, a bit wiser about how difficult Gracia's life really was.

"Gracia!" the wife declared as Gracia walked up, Jaime close behind. "How are you, dear?"

"Excellent, Cristina," Gracia replied, keeping up the approved facade that all was well with a smile and warm handshake. "And yourselves?"

"Dying of thirst," the wife replied, and gestured towards the approaching barman. "Armand?"

The husband nodded and turned to the barman. "**Finally**," he said. "An Old Fashioned and a Sidecar for my wife. And in this century, if you please."

"Yes sir," the barman replied. Gracia continued to make small talk with the couple, while Jaime took another look around the room. The ballroom was still nowhere near capacity; the newest arrivals either stuck together and dissolved into the few existing clumps, leaving wide spaces between each group. Between the plumper shapes of the older diplomats, the lean figures of what Jaime figured were a handful of military officers stood out. She wondered idly how much military procurement money was going to get spoken for that night. However, she also saw the handful of waiters circling around to clear their tablets before rushing off to get more champagne flutes. _Where's the rest of the crew?_ she wondered.

Jaime turned back to the barman, who she saw frantically running through a cocktail guide book. Her eyebrows shot up. _How long has this guy been tending bar?_ she thought. _I think even Becca knows how to make an Old Fashioned and a Sidecar by now._ Gracia's conversation fortunately distracted his two patrons from his desperate search, but when he reached for a bottle of an aged and smoky scotch for his Old Fashioned, Jaime cleared her throat and tapped on the bar. The barman snapped his eyes to Jaime, who quickly shook her head and mouthed "No" before reaching over and sliding out a bottle of decent bourbon instead. The barman nodded in gratitude and started mixing drinks. Jaime cringed as he spilled half of his jigger down the side of the glass and made up the rest with a pour. _Okay, has this guy __**ever**__ tended bar before?_ Jaime turned back to the floor, and watched a waiter struggle to put silverware out in the correct order. _Has __**anyone**_ _here done their jobs before, this is supposed to be some fancy diplomatic event -_

An instant later, Jaime snapped upright as the two different thoughts of the threat to Gracia and the curiously incompetent waitstaff collided. Carefully, she turned back to the bartender and looked him over again. This time, she noticed that his whole shirt was too tight - not like it needed a new fitting, but like it wasn't his shirt. The collar was too tight, the sleeves too short, and the tails popped out of his pants as he continued to fumble his way through mixing drinks. A brief pop of static from his belt as he turned around drew Jaime's eyes to another bad sign - a radio, and one much more complicated than she had seen before. Ginsburg's advice snuck back across her mind. _If it feels off, get out. Well, this feels __**really**__ off._

She turned and snatched Gracia away from her sparkling conversation. "We need to go **now**," Jaime whispered to Gracia, taking measured steps across the room with Gracia held just behind her. She stepped quickly towards an exit Jaime knew would lead them to the nearest elevator. Gracia knew better than to draw any attention to herself and fell in step after a second of trying to pick up Jaime's pace.

"What's going on?" Gracia whispered.

"I don't know who that guy at the bar is," Jaime replied, "but he's not FBI and he's **definitely** not a bartender. We're going back to the suite."

Jaime kept her back to the man at the bar, so she didn't see him reach for the transmit button on his radio. But underneath the harrumphing from Armand and Cristina over Gracia's abrupt exit, her bionic ear did pick up what he said next: "I think we're blown." Those four words sent Jaime's heart, already pounding in her chest, up into her throat. _Oh God, oh God, they're everywhere, keep moving, get __**out**__ of here!_ Every instinct told her to break into a flat run and drag Gracia along for the ride, but Jaime forced her panic down and didn't look back; her eyes flicking between the propped-open side exit and checking anyone even close to Gracia and herself for weapons, radios, or any sign of threating intent. "I think I'm in trouble, Ruth," she whispered.

_Stay calm,_ Ruth advised her. _Can you cover her, Ginsburg?_

_Setting up now, _Ginsburg said.

"Who's Ruth?" Gracia asked.

"One of those friends I mentioned," Jaime replied. "We're almost at the door."

_Got eyes on you,_ Ginsburg said. _Looks like you're clear -_

The main entrance to the ball room was flung open with a bang, the overly-dramatic opening denting the pillars on either side. Even before Jaime could get eyes on the new threat, she felt her adrenaline spike, the knot in her gut leaping up and constricting her heart. Four men in waiter uniforms topped by tactical vests stepped confidently into the room, brandishing big guns. The lead man, face concealed by a ski mask, fired an impossibly loud burst into the ceiling as he crossed the threshold. Jaime winced and reflexively ducked to the right, away from the automatic gunfire ruining the ballroom's expensive ceiling. "Everybody on the fucking floor, **now!**" the lead gunman shouted. The waitstaff reacted first. Half of them cowered down in fear, arms drawn over their heads, but the other half moved with purpose. They reached into their vests or trays or underneath tables, coming up with weapons of their own, and the bad feeling from before now plunged ever deeper inside Jaime's stomach. Her throat clamped shut and her train of thought narrowed to a single track: get the hell out.

Jaime grabbed Gracia's hand, aimed herself at the back exit and broke into a dead sprint, all but dragging Gracia behind her. Behind them, the attackers stormed into position and shouted commands while the VIPs on the floor screamed, scattered and scrambled for cover. Jaime pushed through the gaps between the panicked guests, cursing her heels, while Gracia followed in her wake. They rushed past a bodyguard who had just enough time to draw his pistol before one of the not-waiters shot him in the back; a gaggle of panicking diplomats shielded Jaime and Gracia from the intruder's sweeping look. The exit was tantalizingly close; so close that Jaime couldn't wait and shoved Gracia through the doorway to safety before hurling herself after her charge. The shifting momentum bounced her off the propped-open door and swung it shut behind her. Jaime almost rolled an ankle as she clattered to a stop, bracing herself against a nearby wall to keep from falling off her accursed heels.

Jaime turned to Gracia to make sure that she was, in fact, still in one piece as Ginsburg's voice sounded in her ear. _Making seven hostiles,_ he said. _Ready to engage, say the word._

"Are you okay?" Jaime said.

"I'm okay!" Gracia gasped between breaths.

_Jaime, we need to get you out of there now,_ Ruth said. _There's an emergency exit down the hallway, take the next left. Ginsburg, weapons safe, wait for Pope._

_Acknowledging weapons safe, _Ginsburg said. _I should move downstairs and help Summers._

_Stay where you are,_ Ruth replied. _You've got no route to Summers and Pope can't clear the room by himself._

"What about Gracia and me?" Jaime asked as she helped Gracia to her feet.

_Get moving,_ Ruth said. _You have the gun with you, right?_

"I'm not killing people," Jaime spat out as she worked her heels off and Gracia did the same. "Come on, Gracia, we're going down the hall and to the left. And I think you should have something." Jaime reached into her purse and produced the TASER, which she held out for Gracia to take. "It's a stun gun. Just point and shoot, if you have to."

Gracia nodded and took the weapon. "And you?" she asked.

"I'll manage," Jaime said.

Jaime helped Gracia to her feet, and the two women took off down the hall at a flat run for Ruth's escape route. Rounding the corner, all Jaime saw before she ran square into a large man with a gun were three other men, also carrying guns. She brought her arms up to defend herself against the first man as he reflexively grabbed her wrists and the others scattered in surprise. Jaime had no time to think, only to react. Her mind flashed to her college self-defense classes as she quickly turned around and raised her arms in the air. That dragged the man's hands with her and crossed up his arms; his arms locked, Jaime quickly bent over and to the side and yanked her arms down, hoping to break the man's grip. Instead, she just hauled him over her side, and with the man's hands still locked to her wrist, he faceplanted onto the floor, knocking him out of commission and ensuring that his dentist would be able to put his kids through college. _Turn around turn around turn around!_ went the thoughts in Jaime's head, knowing full well that she had left her backside open to the other attackers with that move. She whipped around with her right arm already raised in front of her face, just fast enough to deflect the second attacker trying to pistol-whip her across the back of her head. When her blocking motion made his wrist slide off her arm, she brought her arm around - another self-defense drill - and managed to grab his wrist, pulling his surprised face into the same orbit as a haymaker from her left fist. Jaime was sure she'd cracked more of her knuckles than his face with that one, but it did manage to snap his head around; Jaime pulled him out of balance and he crumbled to the floor, stunned for the next few critical moments. However, he still held enough of a grip on Jaime's arm to keep her from raising her hand to block; when the third man in the melee raised his hand to smash Jaime's skull in with his pistol, she simply hauled her left leg back and kicked him square in the groin. He hit the ground, gasping for breath as Jaime worked her hand free, but then she saw something she couldn't block: the last man, aiming his gun at her. "**Fuck** you, bi-" he growled before his jaw clamped shut; his muscles froze in a second of perfect agony before he dropped to the ground like a sack of meat. Gracia shook the TASER at the man and gave him another jolt for good measure. "Fuck **you**!" was her eloquent riposte, before she turned towards the man Jaime's haymaker laid out and kicked him square in the face with her heel, putting him down for the count. "And fuck **you**, too!" she added.

Having dispatched the last threat, Gracia turned to Jaime and looked her over. "Are you all right, Jaime?"

"Hey, that's my line," Jaime said with a smirk as she worked the stinging out of her left hand. "Are **you** all right?"

Gracia pulled at the wires still attaching the last attacker to the TASER, popping the spent cartridge out of the weapon. "Yes, I'm fine." She returned Jaime's smile. "You did not do so badly, for someone who is not a bodyguard."

Jaime laughed at that. "Well, let's hope my luck holds, then," she replied. "Come on, exit's this way."

* * *

_Commentary: The Guns of Bionic Woman Rebuilt, Part Two!_

Heckler & Koch G36C

Heckler & Koch developed the G36 in the 90s as a replacement for the venerable G3 battle rifle still in service with the German military at the time. Unlike the G3 and its many derivates with their complex roller-delayed blowback system, the G36 uses a rotating bolt system taken from Eugene Stoner's (otherwise mostly unloved) AR-18, trading some mechanical precision for easier maintenance and lower production costs. The G36 was also notable for its many polymer parts and the carry handle with integral dual optics (red dot sight on top, magnified optic below for the Bundeswehr model), both of which were quite unusual when it was introduced. The G36 today equips the German and Spanish military as well as many police forces around the world. Its mechanism was used as the basis for two experimental assault rifles, the KE (kinetic energy) part of the OICW rifle/grenade launcher combination weapon and the XM8 rifle, both of which ultimately failed to be adopted by the US military, while its civilian variant SL-8 has found some success as a semi-automatic target rifle. The G36 itself was shortened into the G36K (for "Kurz") carbine and then again shrunk into the G36C (for "Compact") subcarbine, the latter of which replaced the distinctive carrying handle with a low-profile optics rail. The G36C equips Berkut's tactical teams, who value its overwhelming short-range firepower, maneuverability and, last but not least, the silhouette that makes it easier to pass themselves off as SWAT rather than criminals or a military unit, both of which would draw too much attention to their deployments in urban areas.

Cheyenne Tactical Invention M-200

Conceived in 2001, the CheyTac Intervention was built from the ground up as a long-range anti-personnel rifle. Previous military rifles for long-range work were usually chambered in either .338 Lapua, which was seen as lacking power for the truly long-distance shots in military sniping, or in .50 BMG, which was at its heart designed for super-heavy machineguns and seen as lacking inherent accuracy. CheyTac therefore designed their system around two proprietary calibers, the .408 CheyTac and later the .375 CheyTac, both designed to have a very high ballistic coefficient - the low drag allows the bullet to retain a high speed, which reduces flight time and thereby the influence of wind and gravity on the bullet's flight path. This was coupled with a rifle designed for maximum mechanical precision and a ballistic computer with weather sensors, a gadget that has since spread to many other users, as well as powerful optics and a laser rangefinder. Taken together, a skilled user can hit a man-sized target at well over two kilometers distance. Sara Corvus acquired a rifle of this type for her attempt to assassinate William Anthros, reasoning that an attack from a distance would allow her to bypass Berkut's security precautions. However, Jaime proved to be a capable spanner in the works, saving Will's life. The rifle currently resides in Berkut's armory, waiting for an equally skilled marksman.

AR-15 family (Colt M16/M4)

Derived from experiments with semi-automatic target rifles chambered for the .222 Fireball cartridge, Eugene Stoner's most famous creation had an inauspicious start in Vietnam, where the first M16s were issued without the spec'd chrome lining or cleaning kits while fed subpar ammunition, which quickly led to fouled chambers, unreliable guns and many frustrated soldiers. The issues were slowly ironed out with the M16A1, but the bad reputation stuck around for a while even as the M16 proved itself to be an accurate, lightweight assault rifle. Many attempts to develop a more compact version (the most successful one, the Commando, earned itself some respect in Grenada) finally led to the adoption of the M4 carbine, which today equips much of the US Army and is starting to penetrate the US Marine Corps, though many Marines still use the M16A2. The M16 is generally described as accurate and pleasant to shoot, but has a reputation for needing to be cleaned often - oddly enough, the overzealous cleaning regimens adopted to deal with this may be doing more harm than good as they increase wear on the gun. Enthusiastic adoption of the civilian AR-15 in the US has lead to an explosive growth in accessories and variants, making the AR-15 family one of the most adaptable weapons in the world. You've seen most of the military characters in Rebuilt handle one of those; Berkut keeps a stock of M4 carbines for when it has to "act in lieu of" (read: impersonate) an official US military unit.

Mark 14 Mod 0

Speaking of Vietnam, the M16's predecessor was the M14 rifle, essentially a rechambered Garand of WW2 vintage with an added full-auto fire mode. Military thinking at the time was that infantry battle rifles needed to have both range and power and be able to lay down automatic fire for close-range combat. Although German and Russian experience in WW2 had shown the importance of adopting intermediate-power calibers for automatic weapons and accepting that this would limit effective range to 400 meters or so, the USA wasn't ready to embrace this notion and instead pushed NATO to standardize on the 7.62x54mm NATO caliber, a full-power rifle cartridge. This created a class of automatic infantry rifles now usually lumped together as "battle rifles" - the M14, the FN FAL and the H&K G3 were the most prominent. It was soon found that the automatic firing mode on all three was too hard to control in most situations, effectively rendering the battle rifles semi-automatic except in case of being overrun at close range. The M14 then had the misfortune to be involved in Vietnam, where its weight was a serious problem while its power and range were less useful in the dense jungle than the M16's ability to lay down accurate automatic fire on the go. The M14 was therefore removed from frontline duty and relegated to ceremonial purposes, though it gained a new lease on life as a designated marksman rifle. The Mark 14 Mod 0 Is one of the newest variants in this line of weapons and places the M14 action in synthetic furniture, lightening the weapon and providing plenty of rails for attachments. The Mark 14's collapsible stock also improves its maneuverability, while the full-auto firing mode can provide serious firepower for door-to-door combat. It is Antoine Ginsburg's favored weapon.

Heckler & Koch UMP45

Like the G36, the UMP was a result Heckler & Koch's 90s strategy of trying to innovate and step beyond merely refining already successful designs; in the case of the UMP, it was to be a submachine gun to replace the venerable MP5. Although the MP5 had sold very well and earned a deserved reputation as a reliable and accurate weapon, it suffered from using a complex mechanism that many considered overkill for a submachine gun, not to mention that the MP5's price reflected the expense of manufacturing it. H&K reasoned that an MP5 replacement would need to be cheaper to reach another group of buyers in law enforcement, as well as offer a choice of calibers, as many police departments particularly in the US were not convinced that the MP5's 9mm Parabellum round was powerful enough. The complex roller-delayed blowback action was therefore scrapped in favor of a simpler mass-delayed blowback action; the UMP was offered in 9mm Parabellum, .40 S&W as well as .45 ACP, matching the most widely-used calibers among US police agencies. In the end, the UMP turned out to be different enough from the MP5 that both still have their place in the market, though it remains to be seen whether the current influx of automatic carbines like surplus military M4s will effectively end the days of US law enforcement using submachine guns. Berkut fields the UMP45 in situations where the higher firepower and penetration of the G36C would be problematic, particularly for use in buildings, airplanes or other tight quarters. A suppressor to preserve hearing, red-dot sights for quick target acquisition and frangible rounds to reduce the risk of overpenetration are standard issue.


	11. Chapter 11

Hello sports fans! Here's chapter eleven, finally - because choreographing fight scenes is hard. (You guys should see our chat logs. If you think **this** is long...) We hope you'll enjoy - and review, of course.

* * *

"This way", as indicated by Jaime, led them further down the bare hallway towards the emergency exit. This part of the hotel wasn't for the general public to see, and the utilitarian decor reflected that. Between the footsteps and Gracia's breaths, Jaime heard the pained moans of the mercenaries she had just fought her way through, fading a little further away with every yard that brought them closer to the exit. Every few steps, Jaime looked to the side, trying to make sure she wasn't leaving Gracia behind. _It's just around the next corner_, Jaime thought. _Just one more corner and then we're out and then we're safe._

Turning the corner, the red emergency exit sign was a more-than-welcome relief - until Jaime and Gracia bounced right off the bright red double doors instead of slamming through them. A second attempt, this time with both of them putting their shoulders into it after a moment of confusion, rendered the same result. Jaime took a step back and saw why: a heavy-duty chain lock strung between the panic bars locked the door shut.

"_Shit,_" Jaime swore.

_What's the problem?_ Truewell asked.

"They padlocked the emergency exit." She turned to Gracia, standing next to her, hands on her hips while she caught her breath. "Gracia, I'm sorry," Jaime said. "We need to find another way."

"What?" Gracia said. "No, this is the exit, it's right here, we - can't you just shoot the lock?"

Jaime suddenly remembered she was carrying a pistol. "Uh, can we?"

_No,_ Truewell said. _The lock is too tough for a pistol, and you might get a ricochet off it. It's no use._

"No, sorry, Gracia." Jaime turned away from Gracia for a moment. "Can I just, you know, tear it off the door or kick them open?" she whispered.

_They're heavy-duty fire doors,_ Truewell answered. _Even if you let us turn your bionics back up to combat strength, there's nothing you can do without tools. Move on._

Jaime carefully took a peek back around the corner in the direction they came, Gracia sticking by her side. "What's the next closest way out?"

_Head back the way you came, make a left when I tell you,_ Truewell said. _There's a staircase there, that'll let you put some distance between you and the attackers. We'll figure out the exit from there._

"All right." Jaime almost moved, but stopped herself. "What about Antoine? How is he doing?"

_Still waiting for Pope,_ Ginsburg said. _They're making everyone lie on the ground while they search the room. They haven't spotted me, but there's not a lot I can do right now._

"Okay." Jaime took a deep breath. "Gracia, we have to go back the way we came. There's a staircase further down. If something happens, I will hold the bad guys off and I want you to get to the stairs and go down until you find the police, all right?"

"All right," Gracia said, pushing a thousand "what if"s to the back of her mind.

Jaime couldn't help but see how scared Gracia was. She gave her hand a squeeze, and caught her gaze when Gracia looked up. "Hey. It's going to be all right. Okay?"

"We **did** get this far," Gracia said. She took a breath and put on a small smile. "I'm ready."

Jaime replied with a smile of her own and took Gracia's hand. "Good. Let's go!"

Gracia kept her grasp tight on Jaime's hand as the two women sprinted back down the hallway, but Jaime's thoughts were outpacing them both. She found it hard to believe the encouraging words she had just spoken; Jaime's mind flooded with all the little mistakes she had made (like the fact that she was, at that moment, running with Gracia on the side facing the ballroom entrance, Jaime realized) and that raising a teenager and protecting one from criminals sent on kidnapping her required two very different skillsets. The constant pressure of how real and immediate Gracia's situation was had become crushing the moment Jaime realized that the ballroom had been infiltrated, and now that their escape route had been cut off and even Truewell was scrambling to find a handle on the situation, Jaime felt crushed. The abnormally heavy banging of her purse against her side further reminded her of how real the danger was: she had been given a **gun**, and was just realizing for the first time that she might have to actually **shoot** and **kill** someone with it.

But even with all the stress and confusion, she was lacking the fatal element: panic. Instead, Jaime's mind was occupied by only one thing: protecting Gracia Valdez. Her heart was pounding, her stomach in knots and she had no idea how she was going to do it, but Jaime still felt in control because she **had** to be in control, otherwise Gracia was dead, and there was no way Jaime Sommers was going to let that happen.

Her focus snapped back to reality from the sound of Ruth's voice telling her to keep going past the vending machines in the distance. The original hallway, a straight shot back to the ballroom's side exit, approached on the left. _Let it be clear, let it be clear!_ Jaime begged, already picturing herself leading Gracia down the stairs to safety as the emergency exit sign glowed red just 40 feet away. It was a nice, comforting idea, so it lasted for all of five seconds. Dead ahead of them, a group of men rounded the corner - two men in waiter disguises, the others decked out in black military gear, all of them slinging short rifles. Jaime stopped and pushed Gracia behind her, while her mind raced for a new idea in the face of this latest complication. Her eyes met those of the man in front, a tanned thirty-something with a full beard and yellow-tinted shooting glasses covering his face. She could watch the expression of surprise build on his face in slow-motion; after what seemed like a really long half-second, he shouted, "There! Stop them!" He and two others took that to mean "grab them" and poured on the speed, while the remaining three interpreted it as "shoot them" and raised their rifles.

The man with the beard took the time to grab a metal tube from a leather holster on his belt, which left him behind a rather more enthusiastic soldier whose plan seemed to be more of a running tackle. If the wannabe tackle knew that Jaime worked at a college bar, he might have rethought that strategy. As it was, his dive left him no chance to correct when Jaime simply shoved him down and rejected his tackle like a practiced safety. He got a nice taste of linoleum for his troubles; not nearly enough to take him out of the fight, but enough to give Jaime a second to breathe. That move also pushed Jaime to the left and took out a large obstruction between her and the rear gunmen; the first gunshot followed swiftly, zooming past her and Gracia.

"**Jaime!**" Gracia shouted, and stepped out of Jaime's shadow, taser already raised. The second cartridge went off with a _POP_, and the shooter dropped to the ground convulsing.

Jaime fought the urge to look at the shooter going down, but her momentary drift left her open for a quick jab to the chin from the right. Her eyes followed the blow in time to see the right hook coming straight for her temple - a knockout blow. She swept up her left arm to block and juked her head back, but all she managed to do was take the blow on the cheek instead of her forehead. Something went [i]pop[/i] as the blow spun Jaime around and sent her head swimming. Jaime hadn't regained her bearings when the attacker grappled her from behind, pulling his arms closed around her in a tight hug. Her head still foggy from the blow she just took, it was all Jaime could do to keep herself off the floor with the big man practically laying on her back.

As she tried to squirm free, she saw movement behind her in the corner of her eye: one of the attackers rushed forward to reach Gracia. _They're going to kill her_, Jaime thought. Even if she couldn't free her arms to strike, she could still reach into her dangling purse; while the grappler wasted seconds trying to get her off the ground for a drop, she reached for the gun. She felt her fake hand grab onto the weapon's hard metal, so she let the purse fall free. Somebody behind her shouted "Gun!" and she felt the grip on her slacken just enough to try something. Instead of breaking free, she grabbed the grappler's arms with her left hand and threw her weight backward, forcing him past his own point of balance. He fought to stay on his feet, backing up while she kept him off-balance. Just when he might have realized how to regain the advantage, the two of them crashed into the man going after Gracia, knocking them both even further off-kilter and sending them both flying backwards into the three goons still holding their rifles and knocking the man on her back to the floor. In the midst of the confusion Jaime's staggered backwards charge left, Gracia saw that the man who had tried to grab her was sprawled out in front of her, trying to get up. She fixed that with several heel-kicks to his face, sending him back to the floor bleeding from his nose and mouth and very much unconscious.

While the other gunman tried to work out who was who, Jaime didn't have that problem. She just hauled her right hand back, gun in hand, and smashed the sidearm into the face of the nearest standing person, the blow dropping the magazine out of the weapon. Then she hit him a second and a third time until he finally dropped to the floor. In her haze, Jaime missed the grappler at her side trying to get back onto his feet; Gracia favored him with her third TASER cartridge, sending him to the ground again. His yelp of pain took Jaime's eyes off her last dance partner, and she whipped around to look at Gracia. She saw that the man who was trying to grab her was unconscious - Gracia had a clear path to the stairs. Jaime looked back at Gracia, her eyes wide with adrenaline, and shouted "**Run!**"

Jaime's heart leaped when she saw Gracia sprint for the exit - but her relief was interrupted by a sharp impact on her back that almost brought her to her knees as she cried out in pain.

Ginsburg's voice instantly rang out in Jaime's ear. _Permission to assist Sommers!_

_Go!_ Truewell barked. _Jaime, hang on, help is coming!_

Jaime growled in response; the agony running up her spine was no match against the red mist in her eyes. She turned and sucked in a breath, just in time to see Mr. Beard raise a collapsible baton back above his head for a second swing. What he didn't count on was her charge. Seeing Gracia's pissed-off protector coming at him forced him to switch up his swing, bringing the baton down as hard as he could in the hopes of hitting **something**. The hasty swing smacked against Jaime's left arm without breaking her defense - or bones - while her right hand grabbed for the threat and closed around the baton's shaft. Her smartskin-clad bionic hand grasped tight, and with a powerful shove from her left hand, her right yanked the baton clean out of Mr. Beard's hand as if he was a drunken frat boy with a pool cue. Jaime followed up with a wild swing at the head of the surprised assailant. The knurled steel handle connected with a _CRACK_, shattering Mr. Beard's glasses and dropping him straight to the floor.

Jaime whipped around to face her last opponent, the last one of the men who preferred shooting Jaime and Gracia to capturing them alive. He reached for his rifle, either to smash Jaime in the head or simply shoot her. Jaime swung her appropriated baton at the man's hand, hoping to knock it away, but she was met with the sharp ring of metal-on-metal contact instead. She tried to yank the baton out for another swing, but instead it stuck fast. Her heart dropped into free-fall in her chest - _Well, I guess this is it,_ Jaime thought - but much to both Jaime's and the last attacker's surprise, the thug was unable to raise his rifle! Both of them looked down to the sling strapped to his chest and saw the wrist loop of the baton jammed into the sliding buckle, preventing the rifle from being raised. The man simply glared at Jaime, spat "**Bitch**" at her, and gave his rifle another tug. Jaime returned the glare, and with the man's hands occupied desperately yanking at his gun, delivered a swift and brutal snap kick straight to his groin.

The stairwell door burst open as Ginsburg plowed through it and the thug screamed a high C note in agony. He dropped to his knees and Jaime delivered a final right cross to his face, knocking him to the ground just in time for Ginsburg to thud to a stop at the edge of the melee.

He surveyed the battlefield and then looked at Jaime. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Jaime's response was to collapse back against the wall, sending the pain in her back surging back for a second assault, and she cried out in pain. "I...I don't know," Jaime stammered.

The uncertain statement brought Truewell back onto the radio. _Are you numb? Can you feel your hands and feet?_

"No, no, I can feel...I just hurt a **lot** of people, and I don't know how I feel about that," Jaime replied. She looked over to Ginsburg, who was checking each of the unconscious attackers for a pulse and securing the lot of them with zip-ties. "Where is Gracia? Did you see her coming down the stairs?"

"No," Ginsburg replied, rolling Mr. Beard on his side to help him breathe. "Ops, we need to find Gracia."

_Nathan and I are running through the cameras, but we're not seeing her,_ Truewell replied.

Back towards the ballroom, maybe ten or twenty meters away, a door was kicked open; Jaime snapped her head around toward the sudden noise, then turned back to Ginsburg. His answer to the unspoken "Did you hear that?" was to press the stock of his submachine gun against his shoulder and motion for Jaime to step to the side, out of his field of fire. Two seconds later, an ear-piercing scream made the kicked-in door sound subtle - a teenage voice yelling something like "Chinga tu madre, cabron!"

"Gracia!" Jaime blurted out.

"Talk to me, Ops," Ginsburg said.

_One of the attackers - yes, it's Earlmeyer - is dragging Gracia into the ballroom,_ Truewell replied. _He's shouting at one of his men, and he's bringing him...a cell phone. Likely calling Valdez for an exchange._

"Who's that?" Jaime asked.

_The man behind all of this,_ Ruth said.

"And he has Gracia?"

_Yes, but -_

Jaime hauled herself to her feet and picked her gun up off the floor. "Antoine, we **have** to get to her, **now**."

"We can't," Ginsburg said. "The room is too big, we have too many hostiles, we have an active hostage situation - there's no way the two of us can handle this alone." After a moment, he added, "And you seem to have lost the magazine for your gun."

Jaime turned her wrist to take a look for herself. "Hm, I guess so." She then pointed the gun at the floor, and before Ginsburg could react, pulled the trigger twice - clicking dead on an empty chamber.

"Woah!" Ginsburg said, grabbing for the gun. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I just wanted to make sure it worked!" Jaime replied. "I hit a guy in the face with it pretty hard. It's not like I put a bullet in it or anything."

"You never **ever** do that!" Ginsburg said. "Firearms are always loaded until you make sure they're not, so you do a damn press check! I **know** Mr. Kim went over that with you!"

"Who?" Jaime asked. "Short Chinese guy? I think we did..._something_ together, but I can't remember what. I certainly didn't have a gun, I would remember **that**."

Ginsburg stared at her intensely for a second or two.

"What?" Jaime asked.

"Okay, forget the gun," Ginsburg said. "Follow me and do what I say. Ops, we're moving back into overwatch, I need an ETA on Pope and the FBI."

_Pope is seven minutes out. The FBI is currently holding a perimeter five floors down, and Agent Caulfield will be there in two minutes._

"Copy," Ginsburg said. "Jaime, you go up the stairs and get onto the balcony. We need someone to watch the situation. Don't let them see you. I'll join you when I've made sure that our friends here won't get loose again."

Jaime nodded and ran off up the stairs. Ginsburg manipulated the controls on his radio, switching to a private channel.

"Truewell," he began, "Sommers just admitted that she doesn't remember half of what's been happening to her. Tell me you fucking heard that."

"I did, Antoine," Truewell replied flatly. "It's been noted and will be brought up at the next Tin Man project meeting. We'll find out how extensive her memory problems are, I assure you."

"And she's off active status the **second** this operation is over," Ginsburg said. "Those fucking controls, you never should have used them, **at all**. Just look what you did to her."

Truewell remained silent for a few moments while Ginsburg kicked the criminals' weapons away a bit harder than was strictly necessary. "It will be brought up at the next project meeting, I promise." Truewell paused again. "You should join Sommers upstairs."

"I'm holding you to that, Truewell," Ginsburg said, then cut the connection.

* * *

Lights, sirens and a convoy of black SUVs did wonders to clear the omnipresent traffic of San Francisco streets for Caulfield. Cell phone in one hand and radio in the other, she hastily coordinated seemingly half of the city's law enforcement officers as the lead SUV blasted down Market towards the Fairmont Hotel. Her team at the hotel had already reported video of Jaime "Baker" and Gracia Valdez mixing it up with ten armed subjects - fortunately, they had both escaped, but now images were being sent of some new black man in military gear helping Jaime out **and** that the ringleader, Richard Earlmeyer, now had Gracia Valdez hostage.

"I need a HRT detail to the Fairmont, **now**," Caulfield barked into the radio. "What's the ETA? ... Twenty minutes? This is a fucking hostage situation, I'm not ordering a Goddamn pizza! My team at the hotel has eyes on the **daughter **of a **diplomat** being held at gunpoint right **now**! ... We are less than two minutes out, and we will hold perimeter but if things get dangerous in there, we **will** go in." Her cell phone rang in her left hand. "Pope! Where the Hell are you?"

"Crossing the Bay Bridge right now," Pope replied. "If you're closer, you can assemble a team while you wait for me."

"My team at the hotel has eyes on Earlmeyer right now, and he's got Gracia Valdez at gunpoint, shouting about some sort of 'package'," Caulfield said, hanging on as the SUV screeched around a corner. "If you have anything else you'd like to share, now's the time. If I have to negotiate with this asshole, I'd prefer not to do it with one hand behind my back."

"I doubt that we have anything he wants," Pope replied. "Specifically, we don't have Diego Valdez. I don't see the point in attempting a negotiation. That leaves waiting for the HRT or doing our own entry. Considering the likely lead time of reinforcements and the already highly unstable situation, we should breech as soon as possible. Do you have a team?"

"I do, but the FBI isn't in the business of executions," Caulfield snapped. "We will hold perimeter, wait for HRT, and only move in if the situation escalates, not just barge in and hope a hostage doesn't catch a bullet."

"Delays are **not** acceptable," Pope replied through clenched teeth. "The principal and our operatives are in danger. We **are** breeching, Sandra. With or without you."

Caulfield was about to launch into another tirade when she realized what Pope had just said. "...Operatives? Plural? Who do you have in there, Pope? The only person I cleared was Jaime Baker. What the **fuck** is going on?" She quickly flipped through the stills her team had sent her on the car's computer, stopping on the mysterious man helping Jaime.

"Nothing gets past you, does it," Pope said. "Listen here, Sandra. **You've** decided to stick to your 'procedure' and let the big boys handle your mess. Well, the big boys are here, and we're saving Gracia Valdez. So stow the attitude - and feel free to thank me when the dust settles."

"No, this, all this shit, this is what you **do** instead of _**killing someone to make a point!**_" Sandra yelled. The rest of the SUV stared at her as she caught her breath. "You will stand **down**, Pope. My men are in position right now. If he threatens Gracia or any of the hostages directly, we will be inside in less than five seconds. And if you or your friends inside start shooting, my men **will** shoot to kill."

Pope sighed. Sometimes, it seemed to be the only thing he could do when it came to Sandra Caulfield. "We have two operatives on station. You know Agent Baker, she'll move to secure Gracia Valdez. The other is...one of our snipers, on overwatch from the balcony. He'll be the first to see any direct threat and is in the best position to intervene. You would do me a great personal favor if your men don't shoot either one."

"I need pictures and a name for my men so they know who they're not supposed to shoot," Caulfield replied, finger tapping on the screen next to the image of who she now presumed was Pope's extra man.

"They know Baker and my guy is the only one on the balcony," Pope replied. "Trained FBI agents should be able to sort that out."

"Unless he moves," Caulfield countered. "I don't need a social security number, just a name and image."

"Brief your men," Pope replied flatly. The line went dead after that.

"Hmph," Caulfield murmured, and simply hit the address listing for Jaime "Baker", the captured image of Pope's newest player still on the laptop's screen. The phone rang a few times before Jaime picked up.

"...Baker," Jaime said quietly. "Sandra, where are you? The hotel is swarming with Earlmeyer's men and he's got Gracia!"

"Jaime, we have cameras in the ballroom and we're on our way right now, five minutes max," Caulfield replied as the Fairmont Hotel came into view just down the block. "We have men outside the main doors if things go wrong before we're ready, but we saw the subjects do something to the doors. Can you tell me what they did?"

"I tried to get Gracia out through an emergency exit, but they had that chained shut," Jaime said. "I guess they did the same thing in the ballroom. Maybe Antoine saw something."

Caulfield looked back at the image on the screen. "Is that who you're standing with?"

"Oh, right, you haven't met him," Jaime said. "He's a colleague, he's here to help me. He's been watching the ballroom for the last few hours and he was there when Earlmeyer's men came in."

"Can you hand the phone to him, Jaime?" Caulfield asked politely. "I need to know what he knows, and maybe he can help out when the time comes to rescue Gracia and the others in that ballroom."

"Yeah, one moment," Jaime said. Caulfield heard her faintly say "She wants to talk to you" before a new voice entered the conversation.

"Go ahead," Ginsburg said.

"Who am I speaking to?" Caulfield asked.

"Call me Ginsburg," he said. Caulfield made a note: _Antoine Ginsburg?_ "And before you ask, I don't have a clean shot on Earlmeyer."

"And until we have a team in position, I don't want you shooting anyone," Caulfield said. "Mr. Ginsburg, we have men on the other side of the main door, but Jaime said they did something to it. What do you see?"

"They chained up all exits from the ballroom except for the kitchen," Ginsburg said. "I saw them try to move tables to block the exits further, but they didn't finish that. Right now they're hunkered down and waiting." After a moment, he added, "Lots of sideways glances. They're off script. Earlmeyer's body language is jumpy. Very volatile situation, I don't know how much longer they're going to wait."

The FBI convoy came to a hasty stop in front of the Fairmont, and Caulfield climbed out with her team, cell phone still in hand. "Well, we just arrived at the Fairmont, we'll have a full entry team ready and in place in five minutes. Here's the plan, Mr. Ginsburg: You do what I say, when I say it. We will be waiting for HRT, but if things escalate in there, we will breach with shotguns and take control of the situation. Now, you and Jaime are our only eyes, ears and guns inside that room, so I need you in constant contact with my team. The priority is saving hostages, not whatever top secret bullshit Pope has you doing, do you understand, Mr. Ginsburg?"

The line went mute for a few seconds, long enough that Caulfield wondered if he would come back on; when he did, he sounded relieved. "Ma'am, I can't technically take orders from you, but for the sake of resolving the situation down there I will be glad to cooperate with you and your team."

"Thank you, Mr. Ginsburg," Caulfield said. "And in case things become sticky, have you had any specialized training, or is Bledsoe just shopping from 'Goons 'R Us' these days?"

That brought a chuckle. "You need someone shot or patched up, I'm the guy," Ginsburg said.

_Medical and combat training,_ Caulfield scribbled down in her binder. "Well, hopefully we won't need either one tonight," she said as she and her team hustled up the steps towards the FBI command post. "Good luck, Mr. Ginsburg."

"Good luck to all of us, Ma'am," Ginsburg said.

* * *

What none of the many people so desperately interested in Diego Valdez's whereabouts knew was that he had actually made it to the Fairmont Hotel an hour before - or, at least, to a shady corner across the street from it. The Spanish diplomat was on the upswing again; he had finally managed to stop the slow bleeding of his wounded arm. He didn't quite remember anymore what he had eaten on the way here, but he had managed to keep it down - also a good sign. Having his jacket buttoned over his shirt and the canister cradled in his wounded arm was less than comfortable, but it hid most of the blood from casual view. With all that and a pistol that still had a few rounds in it, he was in better shape that he had any right to be in. That left just the most important question: would that be enough?

Valdez had weighed it all on the way. He had a fair idea of the security precautions from the FBI, at least as they existed before this whole mess had gotten started. He also knew Gracia well - despite all, she would arrive early to the ball, to mingle with the building crowd and keep up appearances. That was his chance to reach her and protect her from whatever plot Earlmeyer had cooked up. All he had to do was get inside the hotel and to the ballroom without tipping anyone off. Valdez weighed the gun in his hand one more time. Enough. It **had** to be enough. Glancing left and right for any sign that he had been spotted, Valdez stepped out of the shadows. He made his way north on Mason Street, trying not to keep looking at the hotel's opulent main entrance - that was not the ticket. Instead, he crossed Mason diagonally at the next small intersection and went down Sacramento Street, making his way along the less glamorous north side of the hotel complex. Valdez knew about the loading docks on this side; perhaps he would find an open one, or perhaps he would have to round the complex and enter through the parking garage on the back, where he had already once eluded the security cameras on his way outside. One way or another, he was going to get in.

He passed by a small loading dock bustling with activity, again taking care not to seem too interested; already he could see that the next one just a few dozen yards further east was closed. That left the garage, but Valdez felt that that would certainly be guarded by FBI agents. The moment of doubt led to an aggressive move: he quickly looked back to the first dock, then briskly jogged across Sacramento Street to the hotel's side, little jolts of pain with every step from the canister flopping up and down in his arm. He gambled that nobody would notice him trying to open the door of the second loading dock, and he won; it opened to him and he climbed inside to the tune of some more pain from his wound. With a grimace on his face, he turned and pulled the door shut again. He looked around the dock, took a deep breath and pressed on into the service hallway from there. Though he saw nobody in the twisty hallway, there were masses of footsteps carrying all the way down through the gray concrete floor. Valdez proceeded with soft steps; fortune favored him again when that brought him right to a nearby freight elevator in the process of being loaded for the next shipment to the kitchen. He quickly ducked inside, taking cover behind a few large boxes in the back. The hotel staff returned shortly with more boxes, and more boxes - three times in all, and every time Valdez feared that they would discover him, call security and end his gambit. But his hiding place stayed safe, and eventually the elevator's doors closed and the cabin started moving upward. Valdez clutched the canister tight and waited.

After a surprisingly quick ascent, the car stopped and the elevator doors opened. Valdez stayed ducked down, waiting for the staffers to grab the first load of items and carry them away. To his surprise, nobody showed. After a minute, he dared to climb out. The elevator had stopped in a small storeroom with kitchen supplies; a double-wide fridge with stainless-steel doors was humming along in a corner. Valdez quickly crossed the room, opened the door to the hallway gingerly and peeked out. Again, there was nobody to be seen, so he opened the door all the way, closed it behind him and went off in search of the ballroom. He made it about ten steps before his luck seemed to finally run low; footsteps in the distance announced hotel staff closing in. _Mierda!_ Valdez thought. So close! He threw his head from side to side, trying to survey the scene - they had to be coming for the elevator in the storeroom, so going back was not an option. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a wall panel lean open slightly - he took a step toward it and grabbed it, revealing it to be a door to a small closet with cleaning supplies. _Gracias, Dios, gracias!_ Taking heart again, he quickly climbed inside and pulled the door closed behind him. The footsteps eventually passed by, but Valdez kept waiting - because a few steps further, they stopped.

"Benny, get on the radio, we have 'go'," one male voice said.

"Right," another replied. "Let's lock this shit down."

Before Valdez could properly turn those words into a glimpse into the situation outside, he heard new sounds - the clicking and clacking of metal against metal, then two snappy clacks at the end: weapons had been readied. Valdez held his breath and tried to not drop the canister from his trembling arm.

"Hey, how much is killing a federal agent, anyway?" the second voice asked. "Like, is that 25 to life, or..."

"I think that's an express ticket to death row, Benny," the first voice answered.

"Oh. Oh well. Keeps the math simple, I guess."

"What, were you gonna tally your prison sentence or what?"

"Just trying to keep my mind alive, man."

"You're one sick fucker, Benny."

"Yeah yeah. Come on, bossman's waiting."

And with that, the footsteps grew more distant again until Valdez finally couldn't hear them anymore. He took a few more breaths. He weighed the gun in his hands again and looked down at the canister. This was no longer a question of working up courage - he'd come this far and he would see this through. But he needed some sort of plan for this, some idea better than to walk into the open arms of his enemies and hope for the best.

Gunfire in the distance forced Valdez's hand. Plan or not, he had to do something. With a final curse on his lips, he opened the closet doors and stepped out. The hallway seemed clear; taking care to make his footsteps as soft as possible, he moved forward one step at a time. There were no enemies around the corner, but a glance upward revealed a mount for a surveillance camera. Valdez took another breath, then carefully stepped under the camera and continued down the hall pressed against the wallpaper, hoping to stay out of the camera's field of view as much as possible. The wound in his gut made him gasp with each step and the canister tucked under his arm grew heavier with each moment; pain and caution slowed Valdez to a crawl but he still made his way to the back door into the deserted kitchen. He remembered it well from the security walkthrough: from there, he could walk straight through to the ballroom undetected.

His careful advance through the kitchen stopped when he heard the sound of a door being kicked open from the main ballroom; seconds later, a female voice called out "Chinga tu madre, cabron!" and Valdez's heart skipped a beat. Gracia! His teeth clenched in anger and his left hand turned into a vise grip around the pistol. He hurried forward to the double doors leading into the ballroom proper, as fast as his feet would allow, and there he waited one last time. He counted out breaths to force clarity on his thoughts. He snapped the safety off on his pistol. And then he threw the door open.

After such a long time of hiding and creeping through the shadows, the sensation of entering a room full of people who knew his name was jarring, but Valdez's thoughts were laser-focused. His eyes picked out Earlmeyer wrestling with Gracia, and the aim of his pistol followed before anyone could properly react to his entrance.

"Nobody move!" Valdez screamed out, as he gave his best scowl to the smile building on Earlmeyer's face as the gunrunner rotated to keep Gracia as a human shield between the two of them. His daughter's face rolls through a myriad of emotions: relief, joy, confusion, then fear. "If you harm my daughter, it will be the last thing you do!"

"Ah, Diego!" Earlmeyer called out, trying to act relaxed. "Gracia and me, we were just talking about you!"

"Papa!" Gracia shouted.

Valdez moved forward toward the two; when they were twenty feet apart, Earlmeyer raised his gun to Gracia's head. Gracia's eyes went wide, but she didn't whimper or waver.

"That's far enough, buddy," Earlmeyer said.

"Let. Her. Go," Valdez said.

"Valdez, you have no fucking idea how gladly I would do that," Earlmeyer said. "You know the deal. The package, or your daughter." His face twisted into a hyena grin. "Your choice."

Valdez looked at his daughter, silently pleading for help. His eyes turned back to meet Earlmeyer's, his stare forceful enough to even make Earlmeyer take a half-step back. "I have your **package** right here, _pendejo_," Valdez snarled, twisting his body to show off the canister cradled in the sling with his right arm. He took a few more steps forward, close enough that a man in better shape than him could have lunged for Earlmeyer, and kept his pistol leveled at a point right between Earlmeyer's eyes. "I will count to five. If you don't let her go, I **will** kill you."

Valdez was in the middle of saying "One" when he registered a flash of light from the edge of his vision. A heartbeat later, an awesome boom washed into his ears and sucked the air right out of his mouth.

* * *

Antonio Pope's SUV pulled up to the Fairmont's main entrance just as Jaime and Gracia found their emergency exit blocked; if he was still angry over the outcome of the last phonecall, he didn't let it show on his face. With economical movements, he popped the tailgate of his SUV and pulled out a heavy-duty black range bag, leaving a few more equipment cases behind. He slung the bag over his shoulder and jogged up the stairs to the lobby, flashing the badge dangling from a lanyard around his neck to the nervous FBI agents up front. Once inside, he beelined for Caulfield and her inner circle, who were still talking details of a potential breech upstairs. Without waiting for her to address him, he dropped the bag onto the ground, unzipped it and started to assemble his equipment: tactical vest, a drop holster with a pistol, a tactical radio with headset and (most importantly) his M4 automatic carbine.

Caulfield only had enough time to give Pope a quick glance as he arrived. "Are you here to help, Pope?"

"That's the idea," Pope said. "Any change in the situation?"

"Not at the moment, I'm about to head up to lead the breaching team." Caulfield looked Pope and his kit over. "If you're willing to agree to my ground rules, I could use your help."

"Your scene, your RoE," Pope replied. "Where do you need me?"

Caulfield walked up to Pope and looked him in the eyes. "I'm serious, Pope. Lives are at stake here. You do what I say, when I say it, and no cowboy shit. Copy, Lieutenant?"

Pope returned the look. "Copy, **Sergeant**."

Caulfield wasn't phased. "Good. Come over here." Pope followed her to the blueprints for the ballroom floor of the Fairmont. "I want you covering this side door. It leads into the maintenance hallways, and if we have to breach, your job is to keep anyone from going out that door and dealing with any threats in your area. Understood?"

"Got it," Pope said. "How can I reach you?"

Caulfield grabbed a radio and earpiece off of the charger bank set up in the command center and handed it to Pope. "Channel's pre-set." She grabbed her own body armor and tossed it over her shoulders before looking back to Pope. "And good luck."

"We'll need it," Pope said. "Stay safe, Sandra."

"You too, Antonio."

Pope headed to the bank of elevators; they had all been overridden from central security to return to the lobby, so Pope picked one, thought back to the security plan and keyed the FBI radio.

"Agent Pope for security," he said. "I'm in elevator 3, send me up to the seventh."

"Copy, sending you up now," was the reply. The elevator doors closed and the cab shrugged back to life. On the ride upward, Pope checked his gear - magazines seated for quick access on his vest, FBI radio secure in its pocket, drop holster for his pistol producing a smooth draw. It was a grim ritual, but in Pope's line of work, mistakes and failures were very expensive. After about half a minute, the cab came to a stop with a ping and the doors opened. Pope walked briskly past the FBI agents setting up the breach on the ballroom's main entrance, giving each of them a quick scan. His assessment was simple: _competent_. But Pope had little cause to doubt them individually in any event - his problem, as before, was the leadership.

He followed the winding path around the main ballroom, ending up on the opposite side from Jaime and Gracia's escape attempt. The hallways on this side were devoid of people, and the side exit he was supposed to cover had clearly been chained up at the beginning of the takeover and then forgotten about. Still, this was not the time to relax. He set down his bag and retrieved a small hardcase; opening that revealed a few pre-shaped blocks of plastic explosive, an assortment of blasting caps and a few detonators. From his bag, Pope also retrieved a roll of heavy-duty fabric-backed adhesive tape, then he set to work. Setting up a charge on the door was easy enough for him; after 15 seconds, he had the whole thing wired to blow open. He scanned once more for something heavy to park against the charge as backing for a more directional blast, but in light of the sparse surroundings, raw power would have to do.

After a twenty-second wait for further instructions from Caulfield, Pope's ears perked up at shouting from beyond the door. He leaned his head against the door to listen in; Valdez's entry, Earlmeyer's response and the mutual threats was shortly followed by the two men negotiating over the "package". This clicked several important switches on Pope's train of thought. One, it placed Valdez in reach. Two, it placed the missing object in reach. That simplified the calculus considerable; taking orders from Caulfield plunged way down the list of priorities while the primary objective "Secure smuggled Millenium tech" lit up like the lawn decorations of an overachieving suburb at Christmas. Still, with so many hostiles inside the room, a solo approach was not viable. It was therefore time to break radio silence and get the rest of the band to play his tune. The FBI radio was swiftly turned off and replaced by the Berkut-issue earbud.

"Operations, this is Pope, put me on the team channel," he said.

"You're live," Truewell replied.

"Nice of you to finally join us," Ginsburg said.

"Ginsburg, are you still on overwatch with Sommers?" Pope asked.

"Affirmative," Ginsburg replied.

"Then listen up," Pope said. "On my go I need stuns going off on the ground and covering fire. Got that?"

"Pope, no!" Ginsburg called out. "What the -"

"Get ready," Pope barked. "Breach in ten, nine, eight..."

There was more chatter on the team channel; Pope tuned it out and kept counting down. He pushed his back against the wall, a few meters away from the door; his left hand was on the remote trigger for the door charge. His training took over. The blast would be severe - and probably worse on his side than inside the ballroom. There would be a moment of disorientation. Pope's mind broke the entry into a series of turns and steps that he could follow even if the smoke and debris blocked most of his vision. It was a reassuring, mechanical way of considering an essentially chaotic situation. He never questioned whether Sommers and Ginsburg would follow his orders - that kind of distracting, demoralizing thinking was for amateurs. The fact was that he had done everything possible to give himself the advantage; any complications would simply be reacted to.

"...three, two, one - **go**!"

Pope pressed the trigger, the blast washed over him, and then he moved.

* * *

Jaime's attention snapped to the swinging door to the kitchen as a man in a ruined suit, covered in blood and carrying a metal canister under one arm and a gun in the other burst out onto the ballroom floor.

"Nobody move!" he shouted.

"Agent Caulfield, we have a new player," Ginsburg radioed. "Valdez just entered through the kitchen, and he's got a gun on Earlmeyer."

Jaime remained silent, but her grip around the railing tightened as Earlmeyer turned around to face Valdez and put his gun to Gracia's head. "If you harm my daughter, it will be the last thing you do!" Valdez shouted.

"Ah, Diego!" Earlmeyer replied. The knot in Jaime's stomach tightened as she saw the self-confident smirk on his face. "Gracia and me, we were just talking about you!"

Jaime looked over to Ginsburg as Valdez and Earlmeyer shouted at each over down on the floor. "What do you need me to do?"

"Watch the rest of the room, tell me if one of the armed men makes a move," Ginsburg replied, keeping his weapon trained on Earlmeyer, and keyed the radio again. "Caulfield, this is getting hot fast. No good solution on Earlmeyer, it'd put the hostage in jeopardy."

Jaime turned back to the floor. "Goddamnit, there has to be **something**," she hissed. "Can't I just -"

"**No,**" Ginsburg said. "For now, we watch."

Jaime continued peering through the balcony at the other armed men on the floor, but Ginsburg still heard her muttering to herself. "Wish I could do something, anything...even with the...God, I hope Gracia gets out of this."

For a brief moment, Ginsburg took his eye off the scope and glanced over to Jaime. What he saw wasn't fear, but a lot of determination with nowhere to go. He sighed and went back to his sight picture. "Nothing sucks like waiting when you know you've got to do **something**," he said. "Trust me, the chance will come. So be ready for it."

Jaime gave Ginsburg a look for just a moment, then returned to watching the ballroom floor. "Thanks."

"Heads up," Truewell said over the comms. "Pope's coming online."

"Took his sweet time," Ginsburg muttered, then keyed his Berkut comms. "Nice of you to finally join us."

"Ginsburg, are you still on overwatch with Sommers?" Pope asked.

"Affirmative," Ginsburg replied automatically.

"Then listen up," Pope said. "On my go I need stuns going off on the ground and covering fire. Got that?"

Ginsburg's body tensed up as he prepared for - as Pope himself would put it - the situation becoming 'kinetic'. _Fuck me!_ "Pope, no!" Ginsburg called out, just as loud as staying hidden from the men downstairs allowed. "What the -"

"Get ready," Pope said, cutting Ginsburg off. "Breach in ten, nine..."

Jaime hadn't moved from staring at the ballroom floor, but her voice communicated her agitation just fine. "Antoine, what the hell's going on?" she hissed.

Ginsburg abandoned his braced position and turned around to point at his gear bag. "Flashbang grenades in there, grab two, pull pins and throw when he reaches 'one'!" With a hasty move of his free hand, he switched his radio back to the FBI frequency. "This is Ginsburg, prepare for breach!"

"_**What?**_" Caufield replied.

"Pope's coming in!"

The countdown hit one; Ginsburg had no more concentration to spare for talking as he was quite busy lining up a shot on one of the armed men downstairs. It seemed like he drilled a bullet right through the man's medulla oblongata at exactly the moment that the explosions downstairs started; Ginsburg took that to mean that Jaime had figured out the flashbangs but couldn't spare the time to look at her, as he was busy trying to take down the next threat before they started moving in earnest. His suppressed single shots were soon overpowered by the gunfire below - staccato bursts from Pope's M4 interspersed with only the barest excuse for return fire. Again, no time to think about that: Ginsburg saw another head drop out of his sights and swung his weapon around for target number three. Another explosion went off; he hadn't exactly told Jaime when to **stop** throwing flashbangs, but judging from the continuing M4 echo, that wasn't stopping Pope. Target three wasn't where Ginsburg figured it would be; he had to briefly lift his eyes away from the scope to get a wider angle of view on the battlefield below. He saw the main entrance fly open. He saw Pope fire one last burst one-handed, new magazine already in his off-hand - the reload barely slowed Bledsoe's pet operative down.

Ginsburg saw Earlmeyer dragging Gracia toward the kitchen door; Valdez was in the process of recovering from the multiple blast waves, but already stumbling after them. Whatever Ginsburg might have done to affect that little situation went out of the window when he saw a gunman to the side of Pope draw a bead on the operative; with cold efficiency, Ginsburg snapped off one shot to the man's center of mass, staggering him long enough for the next shot to go into one side of his neck and out just above the shoulderblade with a heck of a mess inbetween. Still scoped in, Ginsburg could see men in suits with tactical vests on top storming the room - the FBI had joined the party, and while a few of them put bullets into the last two of Earlmeyer's men, the rest were pointing their guns at Pope. The briefest thought of how to cover Pope's retreat flickered through Ginsburg's head before he realized that he was, however abstractly, considering pulling the trigger on FBI agents.

"All threats down," Ginsburg radioed before clicking the fire selector on his weapon to "SAFE". He watched Pope slowly put his rifle down with his off-hand raised. "All threats down," Pope radioed back, then got on his knees and put his hands on the back of his head.

"Fuck," Ginsburg muttered. "Operations, the ballroom is secure but we lost sight of Valdez, Gracia and Earlmeyer." He turned to address Jaime and tell her how things would proceed from here, only to find that she wasn't at his side any more. "Operations, amending my previous message: I've lost sight of Sommers, too."

Mumbling a stream of cusses not fit for print, Ginsburg scrambled to his feet and rushed for the stairs. Of course, he knew where she was going.

"Ginsburg, she's going after -" Truewell radioed.

"Yes, I know," Ginsburg cut her off.


	12. Chapter 12

Hello, sports fans, and sorry for the long delay. Big Sister is winding down, with only one more chapter to go - and hark, do you hear the distant thunder of a new hard-hitting chapter of Recycled that will accompany the senses-shattering Big Sister finale? Be there or be square - and until then, keep the faith.

* * *

The swinging door of the ballroom kitchen slammed open against the counter as Richard Earlmeyer dragged a screaming and kicking Gracia Valdez through the threshold, smoke and gunfire from the shootout in the ballroom pouring through with them. He was half blind, all deaf from the cacophony of breaching charges and flashbangs, and dragging an uncooperative, panicked teenage girl with him wasn't making his escape any easier. A few steps after the door, he or she or both of them - there was no way he could tell - crashed into a cart holding empty champagne flutes, and while he couldn't hear all the glass shattering against the floor, he felt the shards crunching under his shoes, fighting against Gracia's flailing attempts to break free all the while. There was no great plan, no scheme here: his gut told him to hold onto what he held, and to get away from the fighting, while his brain wasn't in any shape to dissent. Eventually, he hit something big and metal that stopped his momentum, and spun around, one arm waving his gun at the indistinct but rapidly resolving shapes in his vision while he tightened his grip around Gracia's neck with the other.

The door-shape swung hard as someone new burst through and shouted...something; Earlmeyer pointed and fired a shot as the still-indistinct person charged. Gracia started struggling harder, demanding Earlmeyer's attention. In that moment, he decided the little bitch had officially become more trouble than she was worth. He moved to put his gun to her head to finish her off, but before he could do that, the charging shape bellowed "**No!**" and something hard and cold smashed into his head. Earlmeyer dropped Gracia and tipped over, ending up on his knees with his hands barely catching his fall. _Valdez. Fucking Valdez._ Powered by the pent-up rage and frustration of this incredibly shitty day, Earlmeyer pushed himself back up and rushed at Valdez with both arms raised, trying to catch him in a bearhug. Valdez couldn't get out of the way fast enough, and so Earlmeyer pushed him back against the champagne cart. Valdez stumbled, fell and dragged Earlmeyer down with him. Twisting into the turn, they both landed on their sides, small splinters of glass piercing their arms and sides. But painful as it was, it gave Earlmeyer an advantage: now Valdez's good arm was caught underneath his body, while Earlmeyer still had one hand free. Staring at the face of Valdez led to trying to bash that face with that free hand. And while Richard Earlmeyer had never been taught how to throw a punch properly, he was pissed, hopped up on adrenaline and not thinking very straight, so pure savagery was on his side. His first punch went straight into Valdez' nose, followed by another. Earlmeyer took a deep breath and muttered "Fuck...you!" just before Gracia Valdez bashed a sheet pan over his head. Earlmeyer's head swam, but he hadn't gotten this far just to be stopped by kitchenware. He kicked his legs out behind him, hitting Gracia's shin with the heel of his shoe. Ah, that cry of pain...he heard that.

But then his eyes fell on what the elder Valdez had used as his improvised weapon: the cylinder. And just like that, further revenge became a waste of time: Earlmeyer scrambled across the floor, grimacing as he lodged a few more pieces of glass into this legs, but finally he was close enough to grab the package. There were more footsteps outside, loud ones, closing in. Earlmeyer saw two doors - the one he'd come in through, and the back exit. That was an easy choice. Cradling the cylinder in his arms like a newborn, he stumbled to his feet and limped toward the back door. _Mission fucking accomplished._

* * *

The flashes of light and smoke from the grenades Ginsburg had Jaime tossing to the floor below nearly blinded Jaime, and so she almost missed Gracia being dragged off the floor by Earlmeyer, and through the swinging kitchen door. Fear and doubt went off the balcony with the last flashbang, as Jaime turned and bolted down the stairs back to the ballroom floor after Gracia. She took steps three at a time, her hand skimming the surface of the handrail until the twist, where her left arm carried her around the corner like a tetherball, her momentum sending her bounding down the last flight to the ballroom below. Jaime's plan for opening the door was to lead with her right shoulder and hope for the best, and the laws of physics were on her side for that. The smoke inside was starting to thin already, and if Jaime hadn't been dealing with a severe case of tunnel vision, she would have noticed the FBI agents spewing into the room through the main entrance. The only thing she did see was the kitchen door. She barreled at the swinging doors at a full sprint, almost stumbling into the room when the door offered less braking power than she thought it would. Her eyes locked onto Gracia - the girl shouted something Jaime didn't pick up - then Jaime darted over to her and crouched down next to her, putting her arms on Gracia's shoulders.

"Are you okay?" Jaime asked breathlessly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" Gracia shouted, her eyes wild with adrenaline and fear. "You have to help my father!"

Jaime nodded slowly. Her train of thought was going so fast and straight that trying to change its direction made the brakes squeal. After a few seconds of just trying to calm down, she finally got her eyes off Gracia and turned to look at Diego Valdez. The diplomat was splattered with blood all over: his pants, his shirt, his arms, his face. Jaime reached for his neck, made a flighty attempt to check his pulse, then moved on to opening his mouth and bowing down over him. She felt warmth and wetness blowing softly over her face. _He's breathing,_ she thought.

"Uh..." Jaime said. "Okay. He's breathing. What's next?"

_Do you want to me to talk you through this?_ Ruth asked.

"Yeah," Jaime said.

_Alright. He's breathing, that's good. Now, we need to make sure he's not bleeding out. Get his shirt off._

"Can I help?" Gracia asked.

_You'll need a knife and some clean towels._

"I need a knife and some clean towels," Jaime echoed. She grabbed the front of Valdez's shirt and ripped it open, then pushed his bloodied undershirt up for a look at his torso. Valdez had a couple of old bruises and a few new ones, but there were no obvious wounds.

_Move on,_ Truewell said. _I saw his right arm in a sling, check that next._

"Gracia?" Jaime called.

"Got it!" Gracia said, rushing back to Jaime's side with a paring knife and a little stack of prim white towels. She held both out to Jaime; Jaime glanced to the side, grabbed the knife - almost nicking herself in her haste - and set to work on cutting the sleeve of Valdez's jacket and shirt open. Held against the side of Valdez's arm was a well-and-truly bled through bandage fixed by sloppy adhesive tape; Jaime could see how the fringes were stuck to the skin by caked blood.

_Leave it alone,_ Ruth said.

"It looks pretty bad," Jaime said.

_That's why we leave it to the professionals,_ Ruth replied. _If it's not gushing blood right now, we don't care. Move on._

"I don't see anything else," Jaime said.

_Great,_ Ruth said. _You've done all you can right now. Get the FBI in there, they have medics._

"Got it," Jaime said. She turned to Gracia and attempted a smile. "Can you watch your dad for a moment? I'm going to go get some help for him."

"Yes," Gracia said. "Please hurry."

Jaime nodded. "I'll be right back. You stay right here. Anything happens, you scream, okay?"

Gracia returned the nod. "Go. Go!"

No more encouragement was needed - Jaime leapt to her feet and hit the door just as hard the second time through. Two FBI agents heading towards the door snapped their guns to her in surprise, sending Jaime's heart into her throat, but just as quickly lowered them. "Agent Baker, what's the situation in the kitchen?"

"Gracia and Diego -" Jaime squeaked, then coughed and proceeded an octave lower. "Gracia and Diego are in there, the kitchen is secure but Diego needs medical attention, **now**. Get a paramedic up here!"

"Copy that," the agent replied, then keyed his radio. "Ballroom secured, we have one civilian casualty. Send the medics up." He turned his eyes back to Jaime. "Hell of a mess, huh?"

Jaime gave the agent a wild-eyed nod, but before she could reply, the insulating rush of adrenaline dried up and she was hit with a equally large wave of nausea. "Yeah, totally," Jaime replied as her face twisted up. "Excuse me, I've got to get back with Gracia."

The ballroom's side entrance swung open, revealing Ginsburg with his weapon hanging from its sling and his hands raised. This time, the weapons of the FBI agents didn't go back down. Instead, they moved to flank him and protect Jaime.

"I'm with her," Ginsburg said.

"Ma'am?" the lead FBI agent asked, not taking his eyes off the potential hostile.

"He's with me," Jaime confirmed, before turning and running back into the kitchen as she turned increasingly pale.

"Well, that's great," the agent said, lowering his gun. "So now we just have to figure out who that bastard is." He made a gesture in Pope's direction.

_He can take care of himself,_ Ginsburg thought. "I'll go with Agent Baker," he said. "I can help with Mr. Valdez until your medics get here."

"Yeah, fine," the agent said. "But I hope you've got a great explanation for this, because the boss lady is coming, too, and she's **pissed**."

Ginsburg just nodded to that. Watching Caulfield rip her old friend Pope a new asshole was something he didn't care or need to see; making sure that Jaime was alright after her series of ill-advised stunts, however, was important.

Coming into the kitchen, Ginsburg found Gracia bowed down over her father and Jaime bent over a counter, a good compromise insofar as it let her keep an eye on Gracia while keeping a sink close enough to puke in. Her body seemed to shake in pulses, and a few times, she muffled a heaving noise with nothing coming up along with it. She heard the door open behind her, and in between heaves, she waved him off towards Valdez.

Ginsburg took her gesture in the magnanimous spirit it was intended, but even if she hadn't waved him off, his pararescue training would have led him to examine Diego Valdez first. Ginsburg's ten-second assessment of Valdez's condition came to the same conclusion as Jaime had, that the man had been badly hurt, but was not in need of the help they could provide here without equipment. With that taken care of, he turned to Jaime.

"Is it bad?" he asked.

Jaime gagged a couple of times, then turned slightly towards Ginsburg, a pained look on her face. "No," she spat out. "How's Diego and Gracia?"

"He needs to go the hospital," he said, then scanned Gracia. "And you need a hug."

"And you are?" Gracia asked.

"Friend of Jaime's," Ginsburg said. He turned back to Jaime. "We've done what we can here. Fireworks are over, I imagine your friend Sandra will have questions for us. You didn't happen to see where Earlmeyer went, did you? Or that package they were talking about?"

Jaime shook her head, and returned to trying to keep her stomach under control.

"He went out of there," Gracia said, and pointed towards the back door.

Ginsburg grimaced at that. The FBI chatter on the radio had been that this exit was already covered - but there was no mention of catching Earlmeyer. Sure, there was the off-chance that he was still hiding in a closet or something, but that was the kind of long shot that Ginsburg never got his hopes up for. Earlmeyer was gone. They'd have to accept that and deal with it.

"Thank you," he said to Gracia. "You be sure and tell the FBI everything you remember seeing here, alright? There's still a chance we can catch him before he skips town."

Gracia nodded. "Is Jaime all right?"

"She will be," Ginsburg said. "She did an amazing job keeping it together and fighting her way through those bad guys for you." He got up and walked over to Jaime's side. "Pretty badass for the new girl," he added. Then he put his hand on her shoulder and bowed down close to her head. "I'm here," he whispered. "You did fine. Just...please don't puke on my boots again."

Jaime laughed. She was still pale, but she laughed. "No promises."

"At least promise you're not going to run off on me like that again," Ginsburg said. "You stick with me, I'm going to teach you all the reasons why that was a bad idea."

"He was dragging her off with a gun to her head," Jaime whispered back, her eyes going to Gracia as she spoke quietly with her father in Spanish. "I didn't have a choice."

"If you told me, we'd have gone together," Ginsburg said. "You make it as long as I have in this line of work, you get to play the Lone Wolf card. For now, there's rules that are meant to keep everyone safe. Okay?"

Jaime took a deep breath, and some color returned to her complexion. "Okay."

"Attagirl," Ginsburg said. "Well, you seem to get on with Caulfield, so maybe she'll let us escape with our lives. Your play, Agent Baker."

Jaime shoved herself upright, shook her head and took a deep but stuttering breath. "Ready. Once the paramedics are here, we can go."

Ginsburg failed to suppress his grin, but favored her with a nod. "All right." He turned around and leaned against the counter.

Ginsburg's hands defaulted to a magazine check of his UMP, but after that, his right found it's way back to Jaime's shoulder for a reassuring and friendly shake. Jaime smiled as she watched Gracia's tearful reunion with her father. "I did this, didn't I?" she whispered, and moved to wipe her eyes.

Ginsburg gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Yes, you did."

* * *

The main entrance to the ballroom had been through a rather traumatic last hour. First, it had been forced open by paramilitary gangsters, then chained shut, then busted open again with an explosive entry charge. In a quiet moment, the doors had meekly swung back into the frame, hoping to finally get a respite from the abuse. But they weren't quite done yet: Sandra Caulfield was on her way into the ballroom, and she didn't have time for niceties like words or door handles, not that the latter still worked. Instead, she shoved - almost punched - the doors out of the way with enough force to bang one of them against the wall next to the entrance. The impact was loud enough to draw the eyes of everyone in the ballroom to her, but she only focused on one thing: Pope, sitting on a chair with his arms zipcuffed behind him and giving her a look as if **she **was the screwup.

"I'm finally going to send you to prison," Caulfield spat at the bound man.

"Where is Earlmeyer?" Pope replied flatly.

"Forget about him, you worry about me," Caulfield replied. "You put _all_ of my men at risk with your stunt. You're lucky that none of them died, otherwise I'd be charging you with manslaughter instead."

"I don't care," Pope said. "Where is Earlmeyer?"

Caulfield's eyes went so wide they almost fell out of her head, and the rest of the agents in the room didn't appreciate Pope's flippant remark either. "You don't care?" she asked. "_You don't care?_ You put the life of a hostage and a dozen agents in danger, and you don't give a shit?" She turned to the agents flanking Pope. "Get this shitbag out of here and into a holding cell." Caulfield flashed Pope a vicious smile. "Goodbye, Pope."

"If you don't have him, tell Baker about it immediately," Pope said. "We need to bring him in."

"Not my problem," Caulfield replied as she turned back towards the entry team for a debriefing. "Why is he still here?"

"Sergeant Caulfield," Pope growled behind her.

Caulfield whipped back around to face Pope. "_Agent _Caulfield," she growled right back. "It is _Special Agent_ Caulfield, and you and Bledsoe are _not_ my superior officers. You are in _my_ house, and you put _my_ people at risk. As far as I am concerned, you and the old man can go _fuck_ yourselves now. So take your secret squirrel bullshit and shove it up your _ass_, Pope." She grabbed Pope, yanked him out of his chair and shoved him into the arms of the closest agent. "Get him _out_ of here, _now_."

"Wrong choice," Pope said, but that was it; the agent grabbed him by his arm and walked him out of the ballroom with no further comment from the Berkut operative.

On the way out, they passed Agent Eaton, who gave Pope a shit-eating grin before proceeding to Caulfield's side.

"Good fucking riddance," Eaton said. "I hope that creep rots in a Supermax."

Caulfield put her hands on her hips, looked at the ceiling and sighed. "I would take that bet, Nick." She turned to Eaton. "Where's Baker and her friend?"

"Still in the kitchen with Valdez and the daughter," Eaton said. "Paramedics were setting up by the other elevator, they should be here any minute. Her friend is still running around armed, too, so...you want me to pull them out and secure them? I mean, after Pope? This whole deal stinks."

Caulfield shook her head. "Not yet, I want to talk to them first. Bring them to me once the paramedics are done with Diego and Gracia."

* * *

A few minutes later, Jaime sat at an empty table, trying to angle her back in a way that minimized the dull, throbbing pain. Ginsburg sat across from her, his chair turned to watch the proceedings in the rest of the ballroom. His submachine gun rested on the table - magazine removed, chamber cleared, bolt locked back. The results of its use were being fed into black body bags across the ballroom, and he had nothing to say about that. He caught Agent Caulfield closing in and reached across the table to give Jaime a silent nudge.

Caulfield stopped across the table from the two seated Berkut agents, and remained standing. "Who is your friend, Jaime?"

"His name is Antoine," Jaime said.

Ginsburg smirked. "Don't worry, I'm not like the other Tony. I imagine you'll want me to answer some uncomfortable questions."

Caulfield looked Ginsburg over. "Gracia said you looked her father over when you came in. Knew enough to check his gunshot wound and not make it worse when you peeled the bandage off. That, and the fact that you definitely know how to use this -" she reached over and picked his UMP up off the table, "- I'm going to say Air Force Pararescue." She watched Ginsburg for his reaction.

Ginsburg, in turn, felt no need to hide that - he just nodded. "Good call," he said, "though most of my old friends don't work diplomatic security. And I didn't use to be such a good shot before I got out, I'm sad to say. These days I'm more of your general doorkicker type, I just know my way around a first-aid kit. So, counter-question: are you going to arrest me?"

"You keep on lying to me, I might," Caulfield shot back. "I know that you and Jaime...whatever her name is, you don't work diplomatic security, because you work for Jonas Bledsoe." She held up her hand before Ginsburg could reply. "I know, you can't tell me what you really do, and I'm not going to ask. Just tell me about what happened here tonight."

"Well," Ginsburg began, "going in we - Jaime and I - we were missing a lot of the puzzle. We just knew Diego Valdez was gone and his daughter was under threat. We knew Pope was here, but we didn't know what his job was. Jaime stuck with Gracia, I was the backup, neither of us heard anything about what Pope was doing running around the city with you. I set up on the balcony for the ball just in case...turned out to be a good idea. But really, Jaime did all the tough stuff. I heard something about that Earlmeyer guy that was after Valdez, but I couldn't tell you what they were fighting for or why Pope busted in on them - just that when he did make his move, he put us in a pretty tricky spot and the only moves we had were to either cover him or watch Earlmeyer pop Gracia. You try to stop that man with ten seconds warning, I don't think you could, either. And from there on - well, Jaime was keeping the Valdez family in one piece and I was doing the same for Jaime. You'll have to drill Bledsoe for the inner circle details, I only know about this half of the mission, but I can't imagine him giving you any answers."

Caulfield carefully watched Ginsburg and Jaime as he relayed his tale. For her part, Jaime watched Ginsburg, nodding at a few choice moments. After a few more seconds of consideration, Caulfield nodded. "All right. That matches up with what I know - and what I know about Pope and Bledsoe. My agents said that your cover fire kept them from taking a few bad hits, and so I'll say that you were Agent Baker's backup." She shook her head, smirked and took a seat as she rubbed her forehead. "Which you technically were, I suppose. This day has been SNAFU from front to back."

"Is Diego going to be alright?" Jaime asked. "Who's with them now?"

"Paramedics say that he's going to be in the hospital for a while, but he'll be fine," Caulfield replied. "And we've got a half-dozen agents with Diego and Gracia right now. They're safe, Jaime."

"Good," Jaime said. "And the attackers in the hallways? I beat some of them pretty bad."

"They're hurt, but they're not dead either," Caulfield answered. Jaime sighed and leaned back into her seat as Caulfield leaned forward. "Did you really beat all of them yourself?"

"Gracia tased three of them," Jaime said. "I think she kicked one in the face. I don't know...I just...they were coming for us, and I did what I could to hold them off."

"Nothing to be ashamed of, Jaime," Ginsburg threw in. "You did what you had to do."

"I guess," Jaime said. "I'm just glad we all got through it okay." Ginsburg nodded at that. "What happens now, Sandra?"

"Now, you both need to give a statement to my agents, and then...you're both free to go," Caulfield replied. She stood up and offered Jaime her hand. "You did a great job, Jaime. Gracia is alive and safe because of you. You're a good person, and a good agent. If I were you...I'd think twice about working for Bledsoe."

Jaime tried to smile. "Thank you, Sandra," she said, shaking Caulfield's hand.

Caulfield reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card, pressing it into Jaime's hand. "I'm serious. I don't know what you were doing when Bledsoe found you, but you have the skills and mind to make it through Quantico. Give me a call, and even if you don't want to join the FBI...keep the card. Just in case."

"Thank you, Sandra," Jaime said. A second smile, this one a bit stronger. "Again."

"My pleasure, Jaime," Caulfield replied. "I'll send agents over to take your statements right now."

As she walked off, Ginsburg leaned over to Jaime. "Can I see the card?"

Jaime handed Ginsburg Caulfield's card - which Ginsburg promptly tore into pieces. "What are you _doing?_" Jaime hissed.

"Believe me, this is for the best," Ginsburg said softly. "You're just optimistic enough to take her up on her offer one of these days - and we both know that the old man is ruthless enough to ruin your life and hers to keep you under control." He dropped the last bits onto the floor, and gave Jaime a look so sad and apologetic that she could barely maintain her anger towards him as he put his hand on her shoulder. "You know I'm right."

Jaime looked Ginsburg in the eyes for a moment, before looking at the floor. "I really am stuck here, aren't I." She felt her eyes start to moisten at the thought.

Ginsburg gave her shoulder a squeeze. "But you can still do some good here _and_ follow orders. Remember that."

Jaime looked up, wiped her eyes, and sighed. "I guess. I did save Gracia today. Maybe tomorrow will be as good."

"That's the spirit," Ginsburg said, and let go of Jaime's shoulder.

"Yeah, I guess so." Jaime looked at Ginsburg. _415-269-0122,_ she thought. _415-269-0122._

* * *

Half an hour later, Jaime stepped out from the commandeered hotel room that Caulfield had guided her into for her statement. A statement that, in her mind, was a rambling retelling of a day she had trouble processing; still, the FBI agents had nodded and thanked her for her time, so that seemed to be that. She scanned the hallway for Ginsburg - she'd been separated from him at the beginning of all of this, and now all she saw were men and women in suits and blue windbreakers. Where could he have gone?

_Jaime?_ Ruth spoke up. _We're ready to leave, if you're done there._

Jaime almost replied in a normal tone of voice, but caught herself before she was seen speaking out loud to no one in particular. "Yes, I'm ready to get out of here," she whispered as she pulled out her phone and started composing a text to Becca. _Heading home. Be ready to talk about today with Will._

_Your pickup is at the rear exit,_ Ruth said. _Ginsburg is already waiting. And Jaime? Good job. I mean it. You really made a difference today._

Jaime smiled bashfully to herself. "Thanks. Maybe if this job is more like today, and less like the last time, it won't be so bad."

The pause before Ruth's reply was slight, but there. _Well, we don't know what tomorrow will bring,_ she said. _Let's take it one day at a time. Oh, I've had your clothes cleaned, by the way. Should be waiting in the car for you._

"I'm going to have a chance to change, right?" Jaime's phone buzzed: _Man. Do I have to talk with him? :/ He'll just be all awkward and weird. _She tapped out a reply: _Yes you do. He really wants to get to know you, Becca. Just give him a chance. See you at home. Love you._

_The drive should be long enough,_ Ruth said. _Or they could stop somewhere. The important thing is that we get you out of the hotel before more people show up and ask questions._

"I'm not stripping naked in the car, Truewell," Jaime replied. "It can wait ten minutes while I change. I'll do it downstairs, in one of the back rooms." Her phone buzzed one more time. _*sigh* Fine. See you at home._

_Good, _Ruth said. _I'll send Ginsburg with your clothes. Walk casual and try to stay away from any roaming agents._

Ginsburg's voice appeared in her ear. _Go right out of the elevator, I'll have the employees only door open. _True to his word, the door was open a crack, allowing Jaime to slide from the marble floors of the Fairmont's lobby to the concrete slab behind the scenes.

Ginsburg greeted her with a grim expression, her clothes in hand. "Hurry up, Jaime."

Jaime rolled her eyes. "The FBI isn't poking around for us, we've been cleared."

"The old man is our ride," Ginsburg replied. "He's waiting out back."

Jaime furrowed her brow. "Is that normal?"

"No," Ginsburg said. "It's not."

"Right," Jaime said, taking her clothes and ducking into a cleaning staff locker room. "I doubt he'll have us sent to Guantanamo for making him wait, but I'll be fast."

Ginsburg suppressed a smirk. "I don't know, I heard Abdul Hadi cut him off in traffic once."

Jaime smiled and mouthed _"I don't know who that is"_ as she closed the door behind her.

* * *

Jaime and Ginsburg made it to the rear exit without further incident, where Jonas Bledsoe was already waiting for them, leaving against the side of Pope's black SUV; Ginsburg immediately stood a little straighter at the sight. "Get in," Bledsoe snapped. "I'm driving." Jaime had barely closed the car door behind her when he gunned the engine, getting the SUV up to a suitable escape velocity. Jaime fumbled for the safety belt, but Bledsoe's speech started as soon as they hit the street.

"I see you've already changed, Sommers," Bledsoe said. "We need to unfuck this situation. How do you rate Valdez's trust in you? What's his daughter going to tell him about you?"

Jaime's attention was more focused on the street, not Bledsoe's interrogation. "Red light, red light!"

"I've got it," Bledsoe said, cutting into another lane before slamming on the brakes.

Jaime released her death grip on the dashboard. "Okay, first, what is your _problem?_ Second, I don't know! I don't go around rating 'trust' on some sort of metric. Gracia just knows that I was a bodyguard brought in to help protect her."

"Three problems," Bledsoe said, tapping his thumb against the steering wheel while trying to stare the traffic light into submission. "One of my agents is out of pocket, a critical item has dropped off our radar and the person who can tell us the most about it is about to have his diplomatic immunity waived so he get prosecuted for about a half dozen felonies unless we go in there and cut a deal. I can protect Valdez, but not without a full debrief and actionable intel. You're taking point because we don't have time to rebuild rapport. That will hopefully get us on the trail of the item and if I'm on a roll, I might get to retrieve Pope from custody. Are you tracking now or do I need to use smaller words?"

Jaime stared at Bledsoe for a second. "_Yes!_ Smaller words, please! I have no idea what the hell you are saying! I. Am not. A soldier."

Bledsoe sighed. "Alright, here's what you need to know," he started over. "Diego Valdez smuggled a very dangerous weapon into the US in his diplomatic baggage. A weapon he was going to hand over to a known arms dealer, until he decided that playing hide and seek all over the bay and getting into multiple gunfights was a better idea. That is the mess you were protecting Gracia from. The State Department is livid and they want Valdez's head on a pike. Spain's not going to protect him from that. He'll be tried here, put away for a long time, maybe at some point we'll extradite him so he can spend a few years in a different prison in Europe. I don't know what will happen to Gracia in that scenario, but I don't think you want to find out. Do you understand that so far?"

Jaime nodded.

"Now, I'm not here to argue the legal details," Bledsoe continued, "but I can call in a few favors. If we can make the argument that Diego Valdez was instrumental in helping us track down and secure the weapon he smuggled into the country, then that gives me something I can use to make State back off. They won't let him off scott-free but I imagine we could come to an agreement everyone can live with. What I need is Valdez's cooperation. And I think you're the best person to get it, Sommers. His daughter trusts you and that'll go farther than a hundred slick interrogators. So, you go in there and you make him - _ask_ him to tell us everything he knows, because that way everyone wins. Got that?"

Jaime processed Bledsoe's plan for a second. "What happens with Gracia and Diego after that? I mean, he's not going to go back to his old job, but it's not going to ruin Gracia's life, right?"

"I'm not exactly sure," Bledsoe admittted. "But if I lean on State and State leans on the Spanish government, I'm sure he'll get a cushy office job or early retirement or something that'll keep him and Gracia out of any further trouble. I can't tell them exactly what to do or how to spin this for the media. But I can bring the strongest possible hand to the table and see what it gets us. It's really not that difficult for you, Sommers. Go in there, do your job and remember that the better you do, the better things will work out for Valdez and Gracia."

Jaime looked behind her to Ginsburg. The frown on his face wasn't encouraging, but he closed his eyes and gave a silent nod. "I'm not going to hurt anyone," Jaime told Bledsoe. "But I'll talk to him tomorrow."

"I don't need a full debriefing," Bledsoe said. "Just get him willing to talk. Other people can do the detail work. I just need him defrosted. After that, we'll drop you off at home. We can take it from there."

"And you promise that you'll do what you can to make sure Gracia doesn't have her life turned upside-down?" Jaime asked Bledsoe as they turned onto Mission to battle south towards Jaime's apartment.

"Yes, I promise," Bledsoe said, then briefly turned to show Jaime something that might have been mistaken for a smile at a distance. "I _do_ have a heart, Sommers. She's a kid. None of this is her fault and she doesn't deserve to get her life ruined. I'll fight for her, but I need ammunition. If you crack Valdez, it'll be easier, if you don't, it'll be harder - either way I'm going to try, but the odds go up if you do what I tell you."

Jaime nodded. "All right." She pointed at Bledsoe. "But _only_ because what you're saying makes sense, and because this is for Gracia. Don't think this is the start of me just blindly following orders."

"Following orders for good reasons is a start," Bledsoe replied. "I hope you'll learn eventually that there's not always time for questions and discussions, though."

"There are lines that shouldn't be crossed, Jonas," Jaime replied calmly. "And you won't make me cross them just because you say to."

Bledsoe scoffed. "Believe what you want," he said. "We can talk a good game now, but words don't matter when bullets start flying. You do whatever you think you have to do, Sommers."

"I think that was the point I just made," Jaime shot back before returning to watching people on the sidewalk outside and Ginsburg continued his awkward silence in the back seat.


	13. Chapter 13 Finale

Don't stop believing...after months of fevered work, here's the final chapter of Big Sister, clocking in at almost 14k words - twice the usual chapter. Further good news: with this, we are also able to publish the next chapter of Recycled, which has been in various stages of completion for **three** years now. Our plan after this is to go back and clean up the beginning of Rebuilt before we move on - over the course of the years-long writing process, we have grown more and more dissatisfied with the rather uneven "pilot" that serves as the first point of contact for new readers, and we're aiming to fix that. But don't fret - we're dedicated to bringing you not only a new look at the night that started everything, we're also very much still in the game as it concerns continuing the story from here. Keep the faith, true believers! Jaime Sommers WILL RETURN IN "Shadows".

* * *

In the basement of the San Francisco FBI field office, there was a tract of a dozen holding cells - frequent temporary homes for the hard-hitters of violent federal crime. Tonight, however, the kidnappers and bank robbers and spree killers had to make do with the hospitality of the detention center at the federal courthouse. That left only one occupant: Antonio Pope, fresh from his tour through the photo booth and fingerprint processing. The entire process had annoyed him slightly and bored him greatly; he hadn't talked, wasn't planning on talking, because he knew what the result of all this theater would be. He heard the door in the hallway open and got up from his bunk, walking up to the barred door with a slight smile. This set of footsteps belonged to Jonas Bledsoe, who wasn't feeling much like smiling; he weighed the set of keys for the holding room doors in his right hand as he walked, and gave Pope a quick visual inspection before he unlocked the door.

"That was a little louder than I wanted it," Bledsoe said. "We're not getting ballroom surveillance footage from Sandra, obviously. Did you get a good look at the item?"

"Metal cylinder, black box topside with a green light, dimensions seemed to match the box," Pope replied casually. "Item 63, if I have to guess."

"Major Walker agrees," Bledsoe said. "So the question becomes, what can a motivated terrorist do with Item 63?"

"Anthros would know," Pope said.

"He would," Bledsoe agreed.

"Just considering our options, Sir," Pope said.

"No, you're right, we need him for this," Bledsoe said. "God, I hope we can get the geeks up to speed soon. One less primadonna in this outfit."

"You went easy on Summers again?" Pope asked.

"Let's postpone that topic," Bledsoe said, fishing for his cellphone. With a few taps, he selected Will's number and dialed it. It only had to ring twice before Will picked it up.

"Anthros," Will answered.

Bledsoe suppressed a grunting sound and put his phone on speaker, holding it out for Pope to listen in. "Anthros, listen up," Bledsoe said. "We've got a situation here, involving what we think is intact Millenium tech. Preliminary puts it as Item 63, but we're not a hundred percent on that. The bad guys have it. What's our worst-case scenario?"

"_Fuck_. What's the worst case? That I've been _right_ all this time and you've let a psychotic bionic assassin get her hands on the means to build her own _bionic strike force_," Will shouted.

Bledsoe let that hang in the air for a second, waiting for the shouting to stop.

"I _said_ that it was Sara Corvus that took down Millenium, and even your own lap dog said that seemed to be the most likely case, but _you_ never followed up on it, and look where we are now, Bledsoe." Will took a deep breath. "What is the situation? Where is she taking it? Is there any chance she's assembled the other pieces she needs to start building those...things?"

"You're trying to fit the evidence to your conclusions again, Anthros," Bledsoe said. "Millenium was likely destroyed by an augment, yes, we didn't have access to Corvus's body after we killed her, yes - but that didn't add up to proof she was alive, and being right about that now does not make you a visionary then. But let's play your game. What can Corvus do with just Item 63, what is she going to be looking for to complete her set, how do we fight what she could build? Those are the relevant questions here, Anthros."

Will sighed, and both Bledsoe and Pope both saw him rubbing his eye with his left hand. "Item 63 is the heart of their design, it's their take on the brain-machine interface. That's what makes it so _dangerous_, if you have that and you have their schematics, you can start cranking out Millenium augments. She'll need a _lot_ of electroactive polymer muscle, optical fiber, actuators, the whole set of equipment, but that box is the key that ties it all together. And as for fighting them, you _know_ how tough those Millenium augments were. Big ugly brutes of solid polymer muscle and titanium alloy bone, and an armored brain tank."

"Full-on augments are bad news," Pope said. "I saw some of their footage. They sent the prototype to clear out a crew in the Paris boonies. Rips doors off their hinges, goes through light brick walls, shrugs off a couple magazines of assault rifle fire. Millenium didn't give a damn about infiltration. Those things are human-shaped tanks, they barely pass as people. Corvus, at least we managed to bring her down with focused fire. I don't see us stopping one of those things with anything man-portable, Sir."

"We'll try to avoid that, then," Bledsoe said. "Anthros, I need a detailed list of materials. Something I can run up to the SecDef. If we see movement on those items, we may be able to track down the destination. Now, are you sure this thing is only useful for augment-building? Corvus is only one possible buyer. We might also be looking at the Paradise group or conventional terrorists."

"It's an augment brain-machine interface, you can't very well make a cappuccino with it," Will snarked. "And the Paradise group _is_ Corvus. I don't know how this can be so difficult. She's in the final stages of a decapitation strike on Wolf Creek - the Paradise agent incapacitates, and her Millenium augments clean up."

Bledsoe sighed. "Just get me a damn parts list, Anthros."

"And you get protection for Jaime and her sister," Will demanded.

"That's what I'm trying to do," Bledsoe said. "But your girlfriend's running at 20% capability and her little sister thinks dodging her protection detail is a fun afternoon. The only way I can keep them safe under these circumstances is to bring them both in and lock them up."

Will sighed. "And that's not a good idea, for her or Berkut." There was a pause from his end of the call. "We should consider turning Jaime's controls back on. Only if we deem it _absolutely_ necessary. But...Jaime's judgement is clouded on them. We shouldn't let her make a mistake this serious, if it comes to it."

"I agree," Pope said. "We can't beat augments with high-school wrestling and a taser. If we don't have Summers at a hundred percent, she'll go down hard."  
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, gentlemen," Bledsoe said. "So far, the only confirmed threat is Corvus herself. And the combat enhancements won't do Summers any good if the system melts down again. We need a stable system before we can put the controls back into play. Agreed?"

"I believe I already said that they should be activated only if absolutely necessary," Will replied.

"And when they're activated, they need to work," Bledsoe said. "I'll be waiting for that augment shopping list, Anthros. Thank you for your input."

There was another pause from Will. "Yes, whatever," he said, and then hung up.

"Paranoia and doom, just what I needed," Bledsoe said, pocketing his cell phone again.

"Doctor Anthros's worries are not entirely without merit," Pope said. "We're looking at three different investigations right now. How are we going to square this, Sir?"

"The Paradise group remains our highest priority," Bledsoe said. "I'll task our teams with that search. Sara Corvus and the stolen Millenium gear, however...I need this done low-profile. It's a job with your name on it, Pope. Can you handle both?"

"Yes, Sir," Pope said. "Seems to me that the supplies needed to build new augments are also needed for Corvus to maintain her own body. If we can get the scent, it might lead us down both paths - or show that it's the same, if the Doctor's fears are true. We've also still got a list of Corvus's old associates - family, friends, people she knew in the Corps. I'll make some discreet inquiries, see if she's made any contact with them."

"Good," Bledsoe said. "Keep me in the loop, Pope."

"Yes, Sir," Pope said. "But before we leave, sir, we should address Sandra. She was problematic, and I expect she won't let what happened today go."

Bledsoe nodded. "Then let's apply some leverage."

Again, the cell phone was produced from Bledsoe's pocket; Bledsoe felt a brief pang of emotion when he dialed Sandra Caulfield's number. _Nostalgia's a bitch,_ he thought.

"Yes, Sir," Caulfield answered. "I hope you have some answers, Sir."

"I do, Sandra," Pope said. "Let's talk about this. I'm down at the holding cells. Please come and meet me there as soon as possible." Caulfield simply hung up.

Bledsoe looked back to Pope, who simply closed his eyes and shook his head softly.

* * *

Caulfield didn't even make it through the door at the other end of the row of holding cells before she saw Bledsoe standing with Pope - outside of his cell - and stopped dead. Bledsoe watched her opened her mouth and waited wearily for her inevitable moralizing, but then she just rubbed her temples with one hand while the other went straight to her hip. "Of course," she muttered, or something like it.

"Sandra," Bledsoe began with a smile, "thank you for coming. I'm sorry things got so out of hand today. That was not my intention. But I'm glad Gracia and her father are safe. That's what matters most right now."

"And not you springing your private boogeyman from my holding cell," Caulfield said as she cautiously approached the pair.

"We both know that I'd get him out one way or another," Bledsoe said, dismissing the thought with a wave of his hand. "The longer he is in your custody, the uglier the questions get. That's the kind of blowback neither of us needs." Sandra started to speak, but Bledsoe lifted his hand to signal that he wasn't done talking. "Look, Sandra, you know I'm good at smoothing out the narrative. Let me take care of this. You did a great job today. I'll make sure your superiors realize that. All I need is for you to say 'yes'." He gave her a hopeful look.

Caulfield thought for a second. "Are you going to let me question Diego Valdez?"

"No," Bledsoe said, shutting down that discussion quickly. "My people will question him. I'll give you everything that's not a national security issue, though."

Caulfield didn't flinch. "Will I have access to Jaime Baker and Antoine Ginsburg for questions and my report?"

"No," Bledsoe said, narrowing his eyes at the mention of Ginsburg. "And it was just Jaime Baker. Your report should reflect that."

"And will I have access to anything from that briefcase Pope seized from the crashed embassy Jag, or the canister Diego brought with him, or what Richard Earlmeyer's interest was in it?" Caulfield continued.

"I'll provide a cover story," Bledsoe replied. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, and he tapped the fingers of his right hand onto his left arm, already plotting out the pattern of the wool he'd pull over everyone's eyes. "There's too much we don't know right now, and interference from other agencies will only make it harder for us to track it down."

Caulfield nodded. "So, you want me to just...lie. Lie to my bosses, lie to my agents." She crossed her arms. "On a case that has national security implications, involves international smuggling and foreign diplomats, sensitive technology, and organized crime - basically, the definition of a case that is under my jurisdiction, not yours - if you even _have_ a jurisdiction." Caulfield sighed. "I have a job to do, Sir. And that job does not involve covering up for you, not anymore. There's an obvious ongoing threat here - Earlmeyer, this tech, and whoever he was working for that's got him scared so bad to tear San Francisco apart to get it back - and I need to get to the bottom of it."

"**We're** getting to the bottom of it, Sandra," Bledsoe said, and softened his voice and stance. "I know you want to serve your country and protect lives - that's admirable." He nodded to that. "But this is being handled way above your paygrade. So I'm asking you nicely to get out of our way." He let that ultimatum hang in the air for a second. "Get out of our way, Sandra. Please."

Caulfield nodded. "I understand that you think you have to say that, Sir, but this is what **I** do. My agents know what they're doing, and we have the resources to get to the bottom of this. Help us figure this out, Sir."

Bledsoe shook his head. "That's not going to happen, Sandra," he said softly. He paused again and considered his options, and realized that it was time to be the bad guy and lay down the law. When he spoke up again, he tried to keep his voice even. "The Office of Professional Responsibility is about to launch a full-scale investigation into you."

Caulfield almost interrupted Bledsoe, but stopped cold once he mentioned OPR. "_What?_ Why?" She narrowed her eyes. "Is that a threat? You can't get me to go along with your bullshit, so you're going to burn me?"

"Your account was used to access a lot of confidential files using extremely sophisticated cyberwarfare tools," Bledsoe said, looking Caulfield dead in the eyes. "That's not a threat, it's a fact. I **have** burned you. So now we're going to talk about what I need you to do in exchange for me saving your career. Do you understand me **now**?" He watched her closely, hoping for submission but preparing for aggression.

He saw both. Caulfield's shoulders tensed up as she balled her hands into fists and she fixed Bledsoe with a death glare. She didn't get beyond that before her rage collapsed under the weight of the realization that Bledsoe had successfully put her in a corner. She didn't fold entirely - her eyes kept the anger and shoulders stayed tensed - but her tone carried none of her anger. "Yes, I believe I do."

Bledsoe nodded. "Good," he said, covering his shitty feelings by keeping his tone terse and flat. "You'll hear from us. Don't make yourself into a problem again."

Caulfield shook her head sadly. "Of course." She gave Bledsoe a disappointed look. "What do you want me to do with my report for now? What lies should I tell my agents?"

Bledsoe crossed his arms right back and shifted from one foot to the other as he tried to think of a response under Caulfield's expression. "I don't give a damn," he finally snapped. "I taught you how to lie, Sandra. Handle it." Bledsoe took a deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing - but it didn't help much. "Pope will be in touch with the broad strokes tomorrow."

Caulfield simply turned on her heel and left. Bledsoe breathed out subconsciously as the door closed behind her.

Pope cleared his throat. "Do you want me to put a shadow on her, Sir?" he asked.

It took Bledsoe a few seconds to come up with an answer; when he did speak up, he didn't turn to face Pope. "Yes," he growled, and left it at that.

* * *

Upon arrival at the FBI offices in downtown San Francisco, Bledsoe had simply turned the SUV off and walked out, leaving Ginsburg and Jaime in the lurch. After a few minutes of waiting, Ginsburg silently climbed out of the back seat and took the driver's position, piloting them south towards Jaime's apartment. Jaime asked once if they were supposed to just leave Bledsoe behind, but Ginsburg just told her not to worry about it. That was the extent of the words uttered by Ginsburg the entire trip back to Jaime's apartment; even at her doorstep, Ginsburg simply put the car in park and stared straight ahead.

"Antoine?" Jaime asked as she leaned forward to give him a concerned look. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Ginsburg said. A second later, he turned to face Jaime with a halfhearted smile. "I'm fine, Jaime."

"Are you sure?" Jaime replied. As the caretaker of a teenage girl, Jaime had a lot of experience with half-concealed emotions, and both of her eyes told her that Ginsburg was pretty far from fine.

Ginsburg met her look. "Go inside," he said. "I'll pick you up tomorrow at...nine?"

Jaime felt the urge to hug Ginsburg rise up quickly within her, and she went with it, leaning over and wrapping her arms around him with a quick squeeze. "Okay," she replied with a smile. "I'll see you tomorrow, Antoine."

Ginsburg didn't return the hug, but he didn't fight it, either, or move in response at all. "...see you tomorrow, then," he said, but Jaime had already shut the door behind her.

Jaime didn't hear what Ginsburg said, nor did he say anything other than a hasty "goodbye" when Jaime retrieved her gear bag from the back. Jaime chimed in with a farewell of her own, and before she reached her doorstep, the SUV was gone, leaving her standing before her front door, trying to figure out what possible excuse she could use for coming home so late. Her chance to do so was cut short when the door opened before her; Will stood behind it, greeting her with a weary smile.

"Jaime," he said. "I...um, I made dinner. Come in!"

Jaime quickly put on a smile of her own, and stepped inside carrying her black tactical bag containing her new expensive outfit, and her gun. She looked at Will as he continually glanced back over his shoulder at her, and once they were in the kitchen, Will did nothing but look Jaime over with worried and tired eyes, his concern overriding his promise of food.

"So...you made dinner?" Jaime asked with a smile as she took a seat at the kitchen table.

"Yes!" Will said, the corners of his mouth rising for just that moment. "I didn't have much to work with, but I managed to whip up some pasta alfredo. I just hope the noodles haven't dried out too much." As he explained, Will grabbed a saucepot from the kitchen counter and dragged it back onto the stove, cranking the dial to low heat. "How did the mission go?" he asked.

Jaime tried to figure out how to parse the last few hours; the words stress, chaos, noise, terror were all she could drag up, and when she thought about the desperate fight to save Gracia and the gun battle in the Fairmont Hotel ballroom, her stomach dropped out from underneath her. She groaned as the now-familiar adrenaline-induced nausea returned, and her hands gripped the edge of the table. Will turned around and rushed to her side. "Jaime!" he said. "Come on, let's get you sitting down somewhere."

Jaime managed a smirk through her nausea and back pain. "I am sitting down, silly."

"Yes, yes," Will said. "Um. Okay, you keep sitting down." His hands snapped to his hips as Will's head snapped around, casting about for something to help. "I'll - I'll get you a glass of water, that should be good for you - you're probably dehydrated - and..." He turned back to the kitchen counter, grabbed a glass and stuck it under the faucet as he started flipping through the cabinets. "Jaime, where do you keep your ginger? I swear I saw some ginger tea, that should help -" Will slammed the cabinet closest to him shut, "- **dammit**, where is the **ginger** -"

Jaime forced herself up off her chair and wrapped her arms around Will from behind, gently rubbing his chest. "It's okay," she whispered to him.

Will straightened up, inhaled deeply and then let his breath out slowly before he spoke again. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have prepared better. Are you sure you're alright? I can call in and pull your telemetry on my laptop."

Jaime frowned, but tried to forced it back down before she let Will go. "No, that's...please, don't."

Will turned to face her; he hesitated for a moment, then reached out and put his hand on Jaime's arm. "Okay." He paused, and watched Jaime's eyes. "Was it the telemetry?"

Jaime nodded.

Will put his other hand on Jaime's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Jaime. I forgot about your concerns about the bionics."

"It's not that - well, not _just_ that," Jaime replied, and rubbed Will's sides in return. "I'm here, Will. Right here. You can just ask me how I'm doing, I'm not a robot on Mars or something like that, I'm a person."

"Ah! Yes," Will quickly replied with a nod. "I'm sorry, Jaime. I understand what you - I just meant -" He looked down for a moment, sucked in a deep breath and took another ten-second pause before he looked back up in her eyes with an apologetic look. "I love you, Jaime. I care about you deeply and I apologize. I just worry, and…I didn't see you - I mean, I saw you, obviously, but I didn't see...see _Jaime_." With that, he managed a bit of a smirk. "In my defense, telemetry is more precise than 'How are you?'. But your point is taken. How are you, Jaime?"

Jaime smirked in return. "A little achey, but I feel good."

"How is your lower back?" Will asked. "Is it still bothering you?"

"Today didn't do me any favors, but it feels fine," Jaime replied.

"Any malfunctions?" Will asked.

"Okay, I think that's enough, Dr. Anthros," Jaime said with a playful tone. "We'll have plenty of time to play doctor later, and I think we both know there's a more pressing matter at the moment."

"Ah, yes," Will said, looking over to Becca's room before his head swiveled back to face Jaime. "She has been cooped up in her room ever since she came back about two hours ago. For what it's worth, she did apologize to me when she came in, so maybe you should not be too harsh with her. She was safe the whole time."

"That's not the point, Will," Jaime replied. "She blew you off to..." She caught onto the meaning of what Will said a moment too late. "What do you mean, safe?"

"The protection detail," Will said. "Becca's bodyguards. It's only a precaution."

Jaime's eyes narrowed. "Berkut is following Becca around? All the time?"

"Jaime, you asked him to keep her safe," Will said. "Do you remember discussing that with Bledsoe?"

Jaime scoffed. "Like I'd ever ask Bledsoe to look after Becca. His idea of 'protection' would probably be throwing her in Guantanamo."

"Hrm," Will grunted, and gave Jaime a concerned look for a moment before his smile returned. "Well, never mind, then. Serves me right for believing his story about your deal, I suppose. However, much as I am not a fan of the man or his thugs, we do have to do something to protect Becca - and his oafish protection detail is better than nothing. Don't you agree?"

"...yes," Jaime said, and sighed. "But...they're only watching out for her. Right?"

Will nodded. "I hope the day never comes when Becca is in danger...but it's good to know that if it does, she won't be alone."

Jaime gave Will a questioning look. "And that's a little creepy, isn't it?"

Will gave his head a quick tilt to the side as his eyes wandered before coming back to Jaime. "I think we need to get used to creepy."

"I think there's way too much creepy as it is," Jaime countered. "I think we shouldn't have to live like prisoners."

"In a better world we wouldn't have to," Will said. "Do you think Sara Corvus, or the people who destroyed Paradise, or anyone else out there - do you think they won't try to come after us?" His voice lowered, and put his hands in Jaime's. "We're not safe right now, Jaime. I don't like that any more than you do, but that is a fact of our lives. We can either deny that, or we can work to change it."

"You're not the one with Bledsoe and his people watching what you're seeing and hearing what you're hearing - through _your own eyes and ears_, no less - **all** day, **every** day, Will," Jaime replied testily as her eyes narrowed. "You're not the one who has to to lie to their little sister about what's been done to them, that's being forced to play secret agent and put their life in danger." Jaime felt her blood start to boil over as she kept speaking, and Will went pale and still as her rant continued. "Jonas Bledsoe has already intruded **enough** on my life, into my family, and into my most **private** moments. I've already made it clear that what is happening is **completely** unacceptable, and I will **not** give an inch more to him - and that includes him _spying on my little sister_. **Understood**?"

"Okay! Okay!" Will yelped, and yanked his hands out of Jaime's. He shrank away from her a few steps, his hands held up. "Let's...let's calm down for a moment, okay?"

Jaime took a deep breath - or four. "Okay. You're right. You're not the one behind all that shit." She managed a smirk at her boyfriend. "Can you believe Bledsoe's trying to talk me back into turning on the controls soon?"

"Yes, um, I can," Will replied. "You're still just an asset to him, for the most part - and you're supposed to have those controls on. He's - he's used to soldiers that just follow orders. No one talks back to him like you do."

Jaime's smirk turned into a smile as she wrapped her arms around Will's waist. "Except you, of course."

"Well," Will said, "someone has to keep him on track." He returned Jaime's smile.

Jaime leaned in and kissed Will, and they shared a moment together before Jaime pulled back, smile still on her lips. "There's something else to deal with right now, though. You and Becca need to talk."

Will's cheeks had regained their color and then some, but the mention of Becca brought his blissful expression back to neutral. "Jaime, there's no need for discussion between Becca and myself," he protested.

"And I disagree on both counts," Jaime replied. "You don't control the goons following my little sister around, Bledsoe does. I'll take it up with him tomorrow - right before I go back to my vacation. But you two have a lot of apologizing to do, and that we **can** do something about now."

"Jaime..." Will began, but swallowed the rest of his words.

"Go wait in the living room, okay?" Jaime asked.

"Alright," Will said. Jaime smiled and gave Will a peck on the cheek. He smiled back, then turned around and slouched off to the old couch.

Down the hallway, Jaime mashed the button for the lights in Becca's room a couple times. No response - usually meant Becca's either asleep, busy or sulking. Jaime took a guess on which one it was, and opened the door to see Becca on her bed, typing away on her netbook, her back to the door. Jaime sighed and rounded the bed, waving her hands a bit to get her little sister's attention. Becca didn't seem to respond, so Jaime took the next step and waved her hand in between Becca's face and the screen - still no response. Now Jaime knew Becca was intentionally ignoring her, and as her blood boiled over momentarily, she simply snatched the netbook off of Becca's bed.

"Hey!" Becca shouted, and tried to roll off the bed to grab her netbook back.

Jaime ignored Becca as she quickly saved whatever it was Becca was working on and closed the lid. Only then did she hand Becca her computer back. _It's saved_, Jaime signed. _You and Will need to talk. __**Now.**_

Becca went from angry to strangely quiet. "Look...I already apologized to him for leaving without him, and he said it was all right," she replied, slowly drawing a circle on her bedspread next to her with her finger. "We're cool, so...I want to go back to work."

Becca opened her netbook back up, but Jaime slapped it closed again. _No, you're not,_ she signed furiously. _Go to the living room, now._

"But -"

_**Now,**_ Jaime signed.

"...fine," Becca muttered, and reluctantly stood up.

Jaime followed Becca down the hall as she slowly shuffled down towards where Will was standing and waiting.

Will turned to her as Becca entered the room, but Becca froze rigid in place for a moment as he looked her way. "Um," he began, taken aback at Becca's reaction. "I think we have something to, ah, talk about, Rebecca." After a moment of waiting for inspiration, he picked up his train of thought again. "I believe I...I owe you an apology. We, uh, clearly we got off on the wrong foot, and I feel that I contributed to that with my behaviour. I just want you to know that I am sorry and will amend my behaviour." His eyes flicked to Jaime. "Good?"

Becca relaxed ever-so slightly and said nothing, standing close to her sister, but still kept her eyes on Will and Jaime's lips.

Jaime shook her head. "Will, do you know what I want you to apologize for?"

"...no," Will admitted. "You didn't specify."

Jaime looked to Becca. "Do you?"

Becca shook her head.

Jaime sighed. "Will, you've been talking about wanting to get to know Becca for weeks, but last night, when you had the chance, you blew her off for work, just like that." She looked to Becca, who kept her attention on her sister's lips. "And Becca, I trust you to go to Berkeley by yourself - but I asked you to at least **try** to make an effort to spend time with Will, but the first chance you get, you blew him off."

"It's not like he cared," Becca complained softly, glancing briefly in Will's direction. "He just let me go."

"Well, I can't just **make **her want to spend time with me, Jaime," Will lectured. "What is the **point** of -"

The confluence of complaints from her little sister and boyfriend almost pushed Jaime over the boiling point. Jaime balled her fists at her sides and took a deep breath before continuing. "Because I would like us to be a **family**," she said. "Because you are my little sister, and you are my boyfriend, and I love you both so very much, and it would be nice if we could spend time together as a family." She looked between Will and Becca. "I think that would be a pretty great thing for us to try, right?"

Will looked away from her, a dour expression on his face. His mouth moved, as if to mutter something, but in the end he stopped himself from making a sound. Becca, on the other hand, instantly softened, dropping her gaze to the floor and sticking her hands in her pockets. "...I'm sorry," she murmured. "I didn't know that was so important to you." Becca looked back up to her big sister, her eyes damp. "I'm...really sorry, I know that..." she sniffled and wrapped her arms around a surprised Jaime, "I know that you're having a hard time right now."

Jaime's heart couldn't withstand a direct hit from a crying Becca, and she gave her little sister a great big squeeze, which Becca returned twice over. "Thank you," Jaime said softly. She turned to the side and ruffled Becca's hair before looking back to her little sister. "Now, tell Will you're sorry."

Jaime felt Becca tense up, but after a second of suspicious sidelong glances, she looked Will in the eyes. "...I'm sorry, Will. I shouldn't have ditched you like that, it was...it was wrong."

"Yes, I'm -" Will mumbled before his train of thought jumped tracks. "Thank you, Rebecca. I accept your apology, and...I have plenty to apologize for myself. I've...I haven't given you the attention you deserve, and that's for more than just today. I resisted Jaime's attempts to put us together, and even when Jaime forced us to spend time together, I tried acting like your chaperone, not like someone who loves your sister and...who **truly** hopes to be a part of your family. Because the truth is - and I hope you can accept my evaluation - is that I think you are a **brilliant** young woman, and very fortunate to have a big sister who supports you and loves you as much as Jaime does. I think you can achieve great things, Rebecca, and I want to do what I can to help you. I know that I have a long way to go to meet your needs, but I would be very proud if I could one day become a part of your family - and hopefully, your mentor."

Becca barely reacted at first, but as Will continued, she slowly untensed and softened towards him. By the end, Becca wasn't exactly warm towards him, but she certainly didn't seem like she was trying to hide herself from him to Jaime. "Thanks, but...maybe we should get to know each other before I sign up for an apprenticeship," she said. Will's expression dropped, but Becca threw in a smirk. "I mean...maybe you're not **that** bad. Maybe."

Will returned the smirk. "I can accept that," he said. "And, Jaime, I'm sorry," he added, unable to maintain eye contact. "I'm, uh, I know I can be...difficult," he said, gesticulating with his right hand, "and you don't have to say I'm not, I know I am, I'm difficult. But..." Will finally manages to drag his eyes up to meet Jaime's, the remorse plain on his face. "I **want** this." He looked to her and Becca, letting his sweeping hand do the explaining. "This. You. Both of you. And I'm sorry that I didn't show that, that I didn't act right, that I ignored Becca and ignored what you wanted, and you're right. I want to be a family, I want to get better at this. I want to keep trying to be better." He sighed, and looked between Becca and Jaime. "Will you please give me another chance to try?"

A big grin broke out across Jaime's face, and even after the unease Becca'd been showing since walking in, Jaime saw her relent and smile a bit. "Of course, Will," Jaime replied. She reached forward to him, and Will tentatively put his hand in hers. "You didn't have to ask." She reeled him in - even though both Will and Becca initially pulled away - and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Will smiled. "So, um...in the spirit of being more of a family...what do you do when you have a day off tomorrow?"

"Make a big bowl of popcorn, watch TV, and maybe work on robots," Jaime replied. "But..." The unwelcome intrusion of Berkut into her thoughts made her frown. "I don't think I have tomorrow off. The day after, sure, but -"

"Maybe you do," Will said with a grin.

"Oh!" Jaime said, and returned Will's smile. "Then I think that sounds great."

"I'll go make the popcorn," Will said, and hurried eagerly off to prepare the snacks.

Jaime looked down at Becca. "Where's he off to? I couldn't see," Becca asked.

"He wants to spend tonight with us, watching TV on the sofa together," Jaime replied. "Is that all right?"

Becca looked off towards the kitchen. Jaime recognized her "deep thought" expression, complete with a moment spent chewing on her lower lip, which persisted for a few more seconds than Jaime would have thought. "I guess," Becca said.

Jaime gave Becca a squeeze. "Becca, please, just give him a chance."

Becca sighed, and thought for a few more seconds before she smiled up at Jaime. "Yeah, maybe I should. Okay, he can join us. But **I** am still ahead of him in the remote hierarchy. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Jaime said with an exaggerated nod. Becca giggled at that, and Jaime gave her another squeeze. "Thank you, little sis."

Becca returned the squeeze and leaned her head against Jaime for a moment. "You're welcome, big sis." After the brief tender moment, Becca looked back up to her sister as her smile turned mischievous. "But you know what? I'm getting the first show!"

Jaime's eyes went wide. "Oh, no you're not!" Becca squirted out from under Jaime's arms, but Jaime was right behind as the two sisters dove for the old sofa and wrestled around for the remote, squealing and giggling.

Will returned with a big bowl of microwaved popcorn to see Jaime and Becca taking turns sticking their tongues out at each other, and his weary sigh provoked an immediate laugh from Jaime, and even a delayed smirk from Becca. It only took a few minutes until the evening's primary activity turned from watching the show to talking over it. Will, not one for TV watching under most circumstances, was left confused about what was going on and agitated from the two sisters talking over the TV, but once Jaime explained that talking back to the TV is part of the fun (not to mention cuddled around Will that much more), he relaxed and got into it. By the end of the first show, he was even contributing in his own way - commenting on unrealistic events in the show and ads, which Becca was more than willing to volley back and forth with him on, much to Jaime's delight. By the end of the night, Becca begged off to go pass out, and Jaime seconded the motion, both sisters having had a big day. Becca stopped only to plug in her netbook before dropping off to sleep, and Jaime barely stayed awake long enough to change into her night clothes and climb into bed, falling asleep with her arm draped around Will's shoulders.

* * *

Becca woke up - as usual - with Jaime's hand pushing on her shoulder. Her big sis smiled down, and Becca smiled back even though she was still far from fully awake. As she trundled out after Jaime, she spotted Will walking out of the bathroom with just a towel for privacy. He saw her, blushed and squeaked out a quick "Good morning" before rushing off to Jaime's room for his clothes. Becca decided that it was definitely time for a shower - maybe it would rinse that mental image clean, too. Soon enough, everyone was clean - and dressed - for breakfast.

Becca was powering through her second helping of eggs when Jaime waved her hand to get her little sister's attention. Becca looked up. "What?" she mumbled through a mouthful of egg.

"I need to go downtown for a quick meeting," Jaime said. "A...colleague is picking me up at nine."

Becca's heart sank. She was hoping to spend today doting on Jaime - after what she learned yesterday about what Bledsoe had done to her sister, the least she could do is make Jaime feel like someone cared about her. Having the bastard that cyborg'd his sister up steal Jaime away the very next day just felt like salt in the wound. "Oh." Becca couldn't hide her frown. "I guess I'll see you tonight."

"Actually," Jaime said with a smile, "I'd like you to come with us. There's somebody I want you to meet."

"Oh!" Becca said, surprised at the invitation - but not half as surprised as Will looked. _Heh. Wonder how many rules Jaime is breaking._ "Sure, I'd love to go."

"Did - uh, did you call ahead?" Will asked.

"I'll take care of it on the way," Jaime said. "Do you want to meet us in Chinatown later?"

"Oh, of course," Will said. "We could get lunch there. In fact...let me treat you two. I know a place that is very well-reviewed."

"House of Nanking?" Becca asked.

Will deflated a bit. "Yes, that is the place."

Becca gasped. "Oh my god, that place is _awesome_. We are _totally_ going there!"

"It's one of Becca's favorite restaurants," Jaime explained.

Will perked back up. "Good! Then I will meet you both there afterwards."

Becca eyed Will as Jaime leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. _He may or may not be a crazed evil cyber-surgeon, but I gotta give him points for his taste in food._ "I'll call when we're done, all right?"

Will smiled, but that smile faded a bit when his glance flashed down to Becca. "Just...be nice," he said.

Jaime smirked at Will. "Always," she said, and Becca mirrored her sister's smartassed smile.

* * *

Becca's first impression of Antoine Ginsburg was that he looked uncannily like the two goons who had chased her the day before. The clothes, the black SUV, the vaguely disapproving expression, it all fit together. _He looks like he's not muscle from the neck up, though,_ Becca thought. Jaime walked on ahead and greeted him, but although he looked at Jaime and smiled when he returned the "Good morning!", his eyes kept flicking toward Becca. He probably knew all about her and yesterday, and she could feel him assessing her on the "threat or annoyance?" axis. After a few seconds of that, his expression softened and he afforded her a smile, too.

"You're Becca, right?" he asked. "Jaime's little sister?"

Becca nodded. "Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Antoine," Ginsburg said, extending his hand. "Here to see your sister off, huh? Don't worry, she's in good hands with me. Twenty years of driving, not one accident, knock on wood."

"She's coming with us, Antoine," Jaime said with a smile. "I want her to meet Gracia."

Becca could see Antoine's brain skip a few CPU cycles as he tried to adjust to that particular nugget of news. "Uh, okay," he managed to say, then followed that up with a few more seconds of silence while looking straight at Jaime, as if he was waiting for her to flinch. When that didn't happen, he turned to Becca. "So, just to make this clear, you know that you can't tell your friends about this, yeah? We deal with sensitive clients, and I don't want to see them on your Facebook, okay?"

Becca gave a quick nod, but then remembered to be skeptical of all of this secrecy. "Why, you protecting an old Nazi or something?"

"...and that brings me to my next topic," Ginsburg replied as his eyes narrowed, "inappropriate conversation. This is no joke, Becca. If I can't be sure that you'll be on your best behaviour for the duration of the trip, you are not getting in this car. Sorry, but that's the way it is. So save the quips and jokes for later, okay?"

Becca raised her hands. "Okay, okay, sorry, jeez. No need to take my head off, just let me know what's cool, all right?" She looked up to Jaime, who had crossed her arms and fixed Ginsburg with a glare. "Jaime can vouch for me, you want me to act nice, I can act nice."

Jaime just nodded to that.

"Good," Ginsburg said. He actually waited for Becca to look back in his direction. _Hm. Maybe he's not so bad._ "Are you okay riding in the back, or do you need to sit up front?"

"Back is fine - I only need the booster seat in Jaime's car," Becca replied sarcastically.

That earned her another silent glare from Ginsburg, but then he turned around and held the door open for her. There was a laptop bag lying on the back seat, which Ginsburg duly removed before letting her climb in; otherwise, the interior of the SUV could best be described as "subdued", dominated by grey fabric and dark leather.

"What's in the laptop bag?" Becca asked as she climbed in.

"A laptop," Ginsburg replied, barely making eye contact with her.

She kicked a metal case underneath the rear bench with the heels of her sneakers. "And what's in here, a gun?" Becca asked in a teasing tone.

"A big one," Ginsburg replied, his eyes saying he was teasing her right back. "And some other stuff that doesn't like to be kicked, so keep your feet away from there, alright?"

"All right," Becca said, and settled back as Ginsburg turned to look at Jaime. Reading Ginsburg from the side wasn't exactly easy, but she made out "Bledsoe"; Jaime replied that she would get on that right now, which earned her an eyeroll from Ginsburg before he opened the driver's door and climbed into the car himself.

The secretive conversation between Jaime and Ginsburg reminded Becca of the two meatheads that were stalking after her yesterday, and watching Ginsburg climb in gave Becca an evil idea. _Let's poke the bear, see what happens. And get some points from Jaime, while I'm at it. _"Hey, Jaime...I need to tell you something."

Jaime turned around and gave Becca a curious look. "What?" she asked with a suspicious tone.

"Yesterday, when I was at Berkeley...I didn't tell you this, but I was followed by these two guys down Mission. And in the BART station. And to the library."

Becca could swear she saw Ginsburg's hands try to squeeze clean through the steering wheel as he struggled to keep a straight face. Jaime, on the other hand, seemed torn between shouting at Becca and shouting at Ginsburg. _Point,_ Becca thought.

Jaime settled on turning to Becca. "And you didn't tell the police? Or come home? Or call me?"

"I did tell the police!" Becca protested. "Both on the BART and at the library! They came back after the BART, but didn't come back after the library. I thought it was no big deal, but -"

"_No big deal?_" Jaime hissed. "You could have been in real danger, Becca!"

"- _but_, then they went away and I didn't see them again," Becca continued. "But I just wanted you to know."

"Well, next time, you tell a policeman, and then you call me and you stay with him until I come and pick you up," Jaime scolded. "You don't just run off and keep going out there, alone, when you think you're being followed, you're smarter than that, Becca." She turned to Ginsburg. "Isn't that right?"

Ginsburg turned to look at Jaime, then a little further to face Becca. "...that's exactly right," he said. "We deal with a lot of force protection in our business. So, in my not so humble opinion - when you're alone and you don't feel safe, talking to a cop is absolutely the best move. Two people working together, following you over several stops - these guys could have been sharks smelling blood in the water. You need to take safety more seriously, Rebecca."

"Yeah, I understand," Becca said. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Jaime. Really." She meant every word, too.

"Just..." Jaime sighed. "Be more careful. Please." She suddenly looked very tired, and very scared - an expression Becca had seen far too much of recently.

Becca managed to smile back. "I will."

Ginsburg gave her a nod. "That's what I like to hear," he said. He then turned back to the front, twisting the key in the ignition to start the car's engine. Becca felt it roaring to life from the slight vibration in the chassis.

As the SUV pulled down their street, Ginsburg started saying something to Jaime, and try as she might, Becca couldn't get a good angle on either Jaime or Ginsburg's lips in the rear view mirror. All she picked up were a few scraps - "know you're frustrated" in particular got a harsh look from Jaime - and the rest was meaningless without context: "old man", "don't go too far", stuff like that. Becca guessed he meant something about Jaime acting out against Bledsoe, which made her smile. _You go, big sis._

Jaime started talking, but Becca could tell she was intentionally looking away from her, and so she couldn't read anything she said. After a few seconds, Jaime pulled her cell phone out and held it up to her ear, but Becca could plainly see that it was just sitting on the home screen - Jaime wasn't talking to anyone on her phone. She craned her neck, and saw that Ginsburg wasn't speaking at all. _Who is she talking to? And how?_ Becca made a note to ask Sara what this meant.

Whatever it was, the discussion heated up for a few moments before Jaime calmed back down, nodded a few times, and then pretended to hang up her call. She turned back to Ginsburg, and this time Becca could fully read her lips. "Bledsoe says it's all right if Becca meets Gracia," Jaime said.

Ginsburg nodded, but Becca still couldn't make out what he said.

"It'll be fine, Antoine," Jaime said, and gave him a smile. "You need to learn to relax and just take a chance every so often."

Ginsburg said something else, and shook his head.

"Then I'll just have to make you," Jaime replied, and turned back ahead as the SUV made its way through San Francisco morning traffic.

* * *

After a spectacularly awkward twenty-minute drive through downtown SF traffic, Ginsburg pulled up to one of those anonymous Financial District towers that deployed glass and steel only in the most unexciting way possible; Becca felt it sucking the life out of her just looking at it. But sticking with Jaime meant following her and Ginsburg inside, where twentysomethings with somber haircuts and badges clipped to the belts of their 200 dollar suits seemed to be covering all the angles. Becca got a look at one badge up close - FBI - just before Jaime walked up to them and flashed a different one. Whatever that was got them past the agents and into a hallway that was filled with another batch of federal agents, albeit ones with a few more years under their belts and better suits to show for it. In their middle stood a teenage girl, wearing a subdued dress that cost more than everything in Becca's closet put together. Seeing Jaime, she put on a smile and stepped forward to embrace Jaime, while Ginsburg stood to the side and seemed to be watching nothing in particular.

"I am so glad you could make it, Jaime!" the girl said. Becca had to pay attention a bit more to read her lips - judging by how she looked, where she was, and the pass around her neck that read "DIPLOMAT" in big black letters, Becca surmised she had an accent of some sort. "Sandra and my father are awaiting you inside. Oh, is that your sister?"

Jaime nodded, and her proud smile made Becca smile. "Gracia, this is Rebecca. She prefers Becca, though. I figured that you two could talk while your father and I figure out the last details to get you both home."

"Of course, that would be lovely!" the girl said, then smiled brightly at Becca and grasped her stunned hand for a shake. "Gracia Valdez," she said. "So nice to meet you."

"Becca Sommers," Becca replied. "And by the way, I'm deaf, so just be sure you look at me when you speak so I can read your lips. You don't have to speak slowly or anything."

Gracia smiled at that, but Becca still noticed the momentary pause everyone had when she told them she was deaf. "I'll try to keep that in mind," Gracia said. "Your sister speaks very highly of you. You two must love each other a lot."

"Yeah, we're pretty tight," Becca said as she felt her cheeks turn red.

Jaime hugged Becca from behind before walking around in front of her sister. "Aww, that's so sweet. I'll be right back, you two." She gave Becca a wink before turning around and walking off.

"So..." Becca started. "How did you meet Jaime?"

"Oh, just yesterday," Gracia said. "Everything turned out alright, thanks to her. Oh, pardon my manners, would you like something to drink? There's a vending machine around the corner and I need to get rid of my American bills anyway."

"Uh, sure, a diet Coke would be great, thanks," Becca said, her polite smile growing a touch more awkward.

Gracia motioned for Becca to follow her. As it turned out, the vending machine really was just around the corner, but that was enough for the two of them to break sightlines with the agents; Ginsburg didn't follow them either. Gracia fed a crisp bill into the machine and grabbed a Diet Coke, handing it over to Becca with a smile. She grabbed another one for herself, but didn't make much of an attempt to drink it; her smile softened a little, and she leaned in a little closer - not that being whispered to made much difference to Becca.

"How much did she tell you?" Gracia asked. "About yesterday."

Becca was surprised at Gracia's sudden use of the small moment to conceal information - and a little mad at herself for not thinking of it. "Nothing, she just had to 'go to the office,'" Becca replied, playing up both her cluelessness and suspicions. "Not that I get to know what that means."

"So you really don't know, then?" Gracia said, finally allowing herself a frown. "Becca, your sister and I were at the Fairmont yesterday." She let that sink in for a moment. "And she saved my life."

Becca didn't have to fake being stunned. "Wow. What happened?"

"My father," Gracia said. "He got in trouble with some very...I can't think of a better phrase than 'bad men'. They came to the reception at the hotel to try and kidnap me. But Jaime was there, and Mr. Ginsburg, and they protected me." Gracia shook her head. "We were trying to run away and these men were all over the hallways. Jaime fought them all, there were...it must have been a dozen men. It was like an action movie. I didn't know you could do that in real life, too."

Becca's heart leapt into her throat. "Was it...[b]how[/b] did she fight them?" She paused, afraid to ask the next question that popped to mind. "She didn't...kill any of them, did she?"

"Ah, no," Gracia said, quickly moving to reassure Becca. "Nothing like that. Just, you know" - she raised her right hand as a fist and mimed punching somebody - "but she did give me a shock gun and I had to use it. And I kicked one of them in the face with my heels. But they were all okay at the end, a few had to go to the hospital."

Becca smiled. "Okay, that does sound like Jaime." She looked over her shoulder. "We should probably hurry up and get back. Anything else you can tell me? I'm...trying to help her out."

"Help her out with what?" Gracia asked, either genuinely confused or making a damn good show of it.

"With...her whole situation," Becca said. "She's...having trouble with work. She doesn't want me to know, but I know, and I'm trying to help."

Gracia looked confused. "I do not understand what you are asking. What do you want to know?"

"Ah, anything weird or strange about her, Antoine, or anything else about her," Becca asked. "She's been behaving strangely. Because of all the stress, and I'm trying to find a way to let her know that I know. Just, anything weird you noticed."

"Weird, hm," Gracia said, not quite keeping her brow from furrowing. "The entire way we met was weird. Sandra - Agent Caulfield - was supposed to watch us, but then she called in this older man, and he brought in Jaime and made her pass herself off as a diplomatic security agent. And there was this other man snooping around, he showed up later at the hotel and shot some of the gangsters. Sandra had him arrested. And Jaime kept talking to this woman, Ruth, over the radio, but I didn't see any earpiece or anything. I'm...actually I didn't see the radio at all, there was no place to hide one in her dress. I don't want to concern you, but I am not certain this 'Ruth' is real, maybe she was imagining her." Gracia stopped for a moment to think. "I believe that is all. Is that enough? What do you think is wrong?"

"I'm just worried that the old man you saw is...making her do things she doesn't want to do," Becca replied.

"I don't know about that," Gracia said. "She didn't want to fight, and she didn't want to lie to me...but I think she did want to be there and protect me. I did not see the old man much. I'm sorry, I can't tell you any more about him."

Becca smiled. "You've done a lot, Gra...Gra-cia. Thanks." She extended her hand.

Gracia returned the smile and shook Becca's hand. "It is my pleasure," she said. "Now, we should go back before they send a rescue team."

"Yes," Becca replied with an enthusiastic nod.

They turned the corner just in time for Jaime to push a well-dressed man in a wheelchair out of the conference room. His arm was in a sling and his face showed some barely-healed bruises, and from the glance between him and Gracia, she guessed that this was her father. Becca smiled and waved to Jaime, who smiled back at her but kept her hands on the wheelchair handles.

"Gracia," the man said, and then everything turned into gibberish and stray phonemes as Becca struggled to read anything off him. She similarly missed Gracia's reply, admittedly mostly because she wasn't looking at her. Gracia stepped closer to Jaime and gave her a quick embrace while one of the suits pushed the wheelchair toward the exit; with a final wave to Becca, Gracia turned around and followed her father on the way out. Jaime followed behind, putting a hand around Becca's shoulder as they walked out together. Becca couldn't avoid noticing Jaime's concerned look as the man and Gracia got into an SUV with diplomatic plates and a Spanish flag sticker on the rear window.

"Is this what your work is usually like?" Becca asked.

"...something like that, yes," Jaime lied. "So, Chinatown?"

"Yes!" Becca said. "Let me just send a quick email while your friend gets the SUV."

"You are such an addict," Jaime said, adding a smirk to the mix. She took a few steps forward until she caught sight of the Ginsburg in the SUV, waving him over with her left hand.

Becca pulled out her phone and immediately started composing her email to a certain damaged-goods bionic spy.

_Sara, learned a few more things that I need to know about._

_1. Jaime is talking to people that aren't there. I think it's a radio in her ear._

_2. Two new people: black soldier guy who's with Jaime, name is Antoine Ginsburg, and some other mysterious soldier that shot a lot of people at the Fairmont last night._

_3. Jaime fought a bunch of bad guys at the Fairmont last night, but she doesn't really know how to fight._

_4. She's hanging out with diplomats - this Spanish diplomat in particular, Valdez?_

_Get back to me as soon as you can, thanks._

_- Becca_

Just as Becca pushed the button to send off her email, Jaime waved her hand to the side of Becca's vision. She smiled up at Jaime. "Okay, I'm ready to go."

"Are you going to drink that?" Jaime asked, pointing to the unopened bottle crammed in Becca's jacket pocket.

"Oh! Yeah!" Becca pulled the bottle out as she walked next to Jaime towards the SUV. "Gracia bought it for me. She seems pretty cool."

"Yeah, she is," Jaime said, and then leaned in closer. When she spoke, her lips moved but her throat didn't - this was just for Becca. "Just between you and me - your big sister helped to save her life."

Becca smiled and put an arm around her big sister's shoulder. The two of them came up to the SUV, where Ginsburg greeted Jaime with a nod from the driver's seat and started up the engine again while the Sommers sisters climbed inside.

"To Chinese food!" Becca called out from the back seat.

"Yes!" Jaime replied as she turned around in the seat so Becca could see. "Antoine, you should come in with us. Have you ever been to the House of Nanking?"

"Who's picking up the tab?" Ginsburg asked.

"Will," Jaime replied.

"Chinese food it is," Ginsburg said, flashed a left turn and then merged into the street traffic.

* * *

Hidden in the back aisles of the Manteca Goodwill, Sara held up a weather-beaten Carhartt jacket to her shoulders. Even before Anthros cut her open, Sara's broad shoulders guaranteed that "women's fit" jackets and coats felt more like straightjackets, which suited the practically-minded and fashion-oblivious Sara Corvus just fine. One of the best parts of Sara's active duty service was the easy obtaining of durable, practical clothes, something she had found hard to replicate in the civilian world. Security demands ruled out credit cards and Internet shopping, remanding her to scouring the Bay Area's many thrift and discount stores in between missions. Even bionic secret operatives needed new clothes every so often, and she had been striking out on replacing the jacket she wore during her fight with Jaime Sommers on that rooftop. However, this work jacket looked like it might do the trick.

As she walked up to the front of the store, Sara heard a chime from her pocket. One hand dug into her pants and retrieved her cell phone.

_We're here with the delivery, where are you?_

Sara peered through the tinted glass into the bright Central Valley midday heat, and spotted an unmarked van parking near the small cafe across the shopping center. Her thumb quickly tapped back a reply. _Picking something up for myself. Be there in moments._

Her jacket paid for and bagged, Sara was blinded momentarily by the harsh light of the midday sun before the liquid-crystal "sunglasses" layer in her eyes darkened and cut the glare to a much more comfortable level. Her dark blue work shirt and black jeans blended in well with the farming city's standard attire, but certainly didn't help much in the triple-digit heat. Her back and arms instantly went slick with sweat - out of all the things Anthros' designs could have let her keep, the ability to sweat would not have been high on Sara's list, but she was thankful for it at that moment.

Sara's training subconsciously guided her into an oblique approach to the van, and when she rounded the rear corner to the driver's side, she easily noticed the driver bolt upright in surprise.

"If Berkut has people in this shithole, maybe we deserve to be caught," Sara remarked.

"What's in the bag?" the driver asked.

"Jacket, my leather one got torn," Sara replied. "You want to trade fashion tips, or make the handoff?"

"Actually, I'd like to hear about the change in plans," the driver said. "Twice the usual consumables plus over-spec EAP?"

"Not over-spec," Sara countered. "Millenium spec."

"Right," the driver replied as he climbed out of the van. "For your new friend."

"As for the rest, ask the boss," Sara said. "We're just here for the handoff, not a briefing."

"Speaking of which -" the driver tossed the keys to Sara, "- here's the van. Where's the shitbox?"

Sara lobbed the keys to the anonymous beater she took to the meeting to the driver. "Parked over by the Goodwill."

"See you in a month," the driver said, and walked off across the blazing hot parking lot.

Sara grabbed one of the bottles of soda from a cooler sat in the passenger side footwell as she looked into the back of the van: refrigerated coolers filled with gallon jugs of ichor, and at least fifty pounds of the new electroactive polymer muscle sealed in sterile bags, all badly needed back at the house. She blinked away the manifest list from her vision, started the van and trundled carefully towards the exit. As she did so, Sara reached behind her right ear, pulled away the smartskin plug over the USB port in the side of her head, and plugged in her phone. Sara's gut only gave a slight twitch as the connector clicked into place, followed by the beep in her ear to let her know the phone was paired.

As she pulled out into traffic, Sara dialed her boss' new number. After a few rings, the familiar scrambled voice answered. "Hello, Sara," it said, sounding like a buzzsaw. "Do you have the delivery?"

"Handoff went fine," Sara replied. "Heading back to the city now. Got an email from Rebecca Sommers, though, forwarded it to you."

"I saw that," the voice said. "She is getting a closer look at Berkut than I anticipated. And she's getting close to Anthros, too. Sending you unencrypted e-mail was careless, though. I don't think your speech about keeping a low profile had the right effect on her."

"We need to respond, though, or she'll get restless," Sara said.

"Give her a gold star for paying attention, then," the voice said. "Sharing further intel with her will just endanger her further. We need to keep playing our hand close to the vest here."

"She won't like that, just so you know," Sara replied. "She's smart, she'll know we're not giving her anything back."

"She's too immature to be read in," the voice said, "but if she's as smart as you think, Sara, then she will realize that she has no realistic alternatives to working with you and playing by our rules."

"What do you think we should do with her, then?" Sara asked.

"Right now we need to rein her in before Berkut realizes what she knows," the voice said. "Accelerate her development. She has to get better at covering her tracks, and she has to get better at it [b]quickly[/b]. Her school year has wrapped up and now that Berkut knows she's seen her shadows, they will step down surveillance. That should give us some room to bring her in for instruction."

"I think that we should think longer-term here too," Sara said. "I want to get her to the house and introduce her to Eric. She tore through the few bionics papers I gave her, I think she might be a good assistant to him after a few months. And it's a better place for training, anyway."

"Do you think she can handle Nicholas?" the voice asked.

"Considering how excited she got when I showed her my seams, I think she can handle it," Sara replied. "What about Jaime? What are we planning on doing for her?"

"Short-term, the best we can do is prepare," the voice said. "I've upped the shipment accordingly. We can't make a more definitive move until we find a way around Berkut's security."

"Which I could be doing instead of hanging out in the asshole of California," Sara pointed out.

"Absolutely not," the voice said. "We have had too many close calls already. We can't risk them recapturing you. Keep your distance until we have a plan for how to deal with them."

"Right, right," Sara said. "Anything else?"

"You need a new email account," the voice said. "Have Eric set one up. And have your first email be to Rebecca about security and encryption."

"Can do," Sara replied.

"I need to handle something," the voice said. "Call me when you have the shipment secured in the house. Goodbye, Sara."

"Talk to you later," Sara said, and hung up the call before resting her phone in a cupholder and adjusting her hair to cover the cable protruding from the side of her head better. She took another swig of soda and settled down for the drive back to the house, her mind occupied by how the hell to plan a tradecraft regimen for a teenager.

* * *

Richard Earlmeyer hadn't shaved in two days. He also hadn't slept in two days, but he could fix that one with a drive-thru coffee - the stubble, however, was really making him look like a fugitive, or so every glance in his rearview mirror seemed to tell him. He had done everything possible to stay off the radar, changing cars three times, clothes twice, wearing big aviator shades and keeping the hell away from traffic cameras, but he knew that in the game he had chosen to play, there was no running out the clock - he had to get out of the country, one way or another, and quickly. There was a private jet waiting for him at Mineta San Jose International Airport to take him far, far away from any jurisdiction even halfway sympathetic to the US, and there was only one final, small detail to take care of: he had to actually make the deal he had thrown away a decade of his life for.

The neglected North San Jose back alley didn't look all too different from where he had made his home, smack in the middle of an industrial park with zero foot traffic. Earlmeyer had been careful to park his car well away from the meeting spot; leaving millions in cash and valuables unguarded wasn't his idea of a fun time, but displeasing his employers was even lower on that list. All he had left to take with him was his gun and the canister, whose status LED had gone to yellow an hour before and caused him no end of worry. If that meant the deal was off...shit, Earlmeyer couldn't even conceive of exactly how screwed he would be. He prayed that he was still within the terms of the contract.

The representative of his employers was already there. He wore a finely-tailored suit, sunglasses and an utterly frozen facial expression. As if to counterbalance that slightly, there was a folding table set up next to him, with a briefcase and a few bottles of water on it. Earlmeyer stepped closed to greet him, but the representative merely held out a cellphone with his gloved right hand. Earlmeyer was still looking at it when it rang; he took the phone, then a breath, then the call.

"Earlmeyer," he said. "I have the package."

"Excellent work, Richard," came a buzzsaw voice from the other end. "Your bearer bonds are inside the briefcase. Please hand the package over to our man and authenticate your reward."

"Um," Earlmeyer said, "is that...all?"

"Do you have anything else to say?" the voice asked.

"I'm very sorry about the mess, Sir," Earlmeyer pleaded. "I misjudged my courier, but I did everything in my power to retrieve the package intact."

"And that's all that matters," the voice said. "You went to a lot of trouble to keep your word, Richard. I appreciate that. Now, please, count the money. We have to be sure that you're satisfied, too."

Earlmeyer felt something like relief, finally; after everything that had happened, he didn't expect his employers to be so...reasonable. With some of his worries gone, he handed the canister over to the silent man in the suit, who took it and quickly plugged some other gizmo into it; within seconds, the status LED went back to green. Earlmeyer let out his breath and walked over to the table, where he set down the phone, spun the briefcase around and opened it up. Staring up at him were a cool 10 million dollars in bearer bonds; Earlmeyer quickly leafed through the stack, watching for signs of forgery as he went, but finally he got to the bottom and realized that this was real, and that the biggest deal of his life was finally over and done with. With a faint smile on his lips, he closed the briefcase, hefted it off the table and picked up the cellphone again.

"Yeah, it's all there," he said. "Can I just say that it's been a pleasure doing business with you, Sir."

"I feel the same way, Richard," the voice said. "I just have one more question for you."

"Uh," Earlmeyer stammered, "yeah?"

"Do you taste garlic?"

Earlmeyer spun around just in time for the man in the suit to empty a small aerosol canister in his face. Earlmeyer stumbled back, dropping both cellphone and briefcase in a mad scramble to reach his gun. The taste of garlic did indeed flood his mouth, but the more immediate concern was the burning and itching sensation all over his face. Moments later, his vision went blurry, and his left hand went up to his face in shock, but only felt a wet glop where his eye should be. _That_ was when Earlmeyer started to panic, but as his other hand drew his gun, the well-dressed man deftly disarmed him and took a step back. Both hands now went to his face as his vision went completely black, but all he felt was wetness and mass, just before his hands started to tingle and burn as well.

The buzzsaw voice rang in his ears as Earlmeyer's panic and terror dropped him to his knees. "Can you hear me, Richard? I suppose you probably can, but you might find replying difficult at this point."

"He still has his jaw," the man in the suit remarked.

"Well then. You are undergoing rapid and traumatic depolymerization of the actin molecules of all the cells in your body," the voice continued. "Basically, you are dissolving at a biochemical level."

Earlmeyer tried to scream, but his jaw simply didn't respond as his whole head felt numb.

"Actin is what supports your cells and keeps them rigid; without it, your cells will collapse and you will dissolve into a puddle of proteins, fats, water and bone. Fortunately, it should also destroy your nerves as it goes, so it should be a relatively painless, if very messy, death."

Earlmeyer slumped against a dumpster next to him and stopped responding, as blood poured forth from perforated arteries in his head and neck.

"I think he's unconscious," the man in the suit said.

"Oh well," the voice said. "Deactivate the nanotech and sterilize the scene."

"Can do," the man in the suit replied, and disconnected the call. A small hand-held black light was pulled out of his jacket pocket, and the table, the briefcase, and especially the bearer bonds within were carefully illuminated with the black light as Earlmeyer slowly dissolved into a puddle of reddish beige goo with bits of bone and fabric mixed in on the ground. Once the other items were clean and folded up, the man carefully swept the lump of biological goo and clothes that used to be Richard Earlmeyer with the black light several times, then opened both bottles of water - both of which contained a strong bleach solution rather than anything potable - and poured them over the 'corpse', carefully stirring the bleach into the goo. The scene now sufficiently sterilized, the man picked up the table and his payment of ten million in bearer bonds, and walked away.

* * *

Becca woke with her alarm and the sun - which at that time in the summer, meant somewhere around six o'clock in the morning. Sliding on her pyjama pants, she crept down the hall and into the kitchen, one very specific mission on her mind. All Becca could think about the last two nights was what Sara had said about what had been done to Jaime, and what that meant for the dozens of little expressions of fear on Jaime's face when she talked about her job, the late nights, and the unexplained injuries. She imagined her sister terrified, alone in some nightmare she couldn't escape, and it drove Becca crazy that she could do nothing to help without putting both herself and Jaime in danger.

But last night, she remembered one thing she could do to show Jaime she was there for her, one action that carried all the meanings Becca wanted Jaime to hear. And so, she was up with the morning sun, counting eggs and laying out strips of bacon to make the best damn breakfast she could for her big sister. Her preparations complete for now, Becca carefully stepped down the hall to check on Jaime.

She peered through the crack in the door to Jaime's room - that crack proof enough that Will had gone home the night before. She saw Jaime curled up on her side in the bed, and carefully stepped inside, rounding to Jaime's back - where Becca saw something that made her gasp. The first bruise her eyes locked onto was an angry red line straight across Jaime's back, radiating an aura of blue and yellow at its fringes and only interrupted by the strap of her bra. Smaller red stripes ran over her left arm, and the side of her torso wore marks close to her last pair of ribs.

Becca teared up as she gingerly reached for Jaime's bruises, and out of an abundance of need to hug her big sister, laid down on the bed behind Jaime and wrapped her arms around her. Jaime squirmed a bit in response, trying not to wake up completely, but it was a futile effort. Becca felt Jaime squirm to turn around, and she loosened her hug until Jaime was on her other side, facing her little sister. Her left arm reached out and wrapped around Becca's shoulders, and the younger Sommers sister laid her head on Jaime's shoulder as Jaime completed her return hug. Jaime gave Becca a squeeze in return as Becca held on tight.

"Hey," Becca said.

"Hey yourself," Jaime whispered back as she felt Becca press a damp cheek into her shoulder. Becca simply felt the vibrations of her big sister talking and leaned back just enough to see Jaime's lips. "What's the matter?"

"I just...I saw your bruises, and you looked like you needed a hug," Becca replied.

Jaime gave Becca another squeeze, which Becca gladly returned. After a few more moments of hugging, Jaime let her go and rolled upright to sit cross-legged on her bed. Jaime gave Becca a smile as she stood up. "Thanks, Becca." Jaime raised her eyebrows at Becca. "Seriously, what are you really doing in here, though?"

Becca's eyebrows shot up for a moment, as her train of thought skipped tracks back to its original path. "Ah! I'm making breakfast," she said.

That got an eyebrow raise from Jaime. "...why?"

"Well...because you've looked like you've needed a hug for a while," Becca said nervously. "So, put some pants on and come and get your overcooked eggs." Her nervous demeanor allowed for a smirk at her own joke.

Jaime slowly nodded. "All right." Her continued deployment of her "curious eyebrow" let Becca know that Jaime could tell that Becca had some big discussion on her mind, and that she wanted to hear it sooner rather than later.

"Well, I should get going - er, started," Becca said. "How many eggs?"

"Two, thanks," Jaime answered.

"Okay! Two eggs, coming up," Becca said, and hustled out of Jaime's room.

Becca had, in point of fact, made breakfast more than once in the last three years, so she ably got the scrambled eggs and bacon going, and even started a few slices of toast. By the time Jaime reappeared in her doorway wearing a dirty t-shirt and pair of pants, Becca was munching on a strip of bacon and gave her big sister a warm smile.

"Good morning," Becca chirped. She put on her biggest, best smile for Jaime.

"Good morning yourself," Jaime replied with a yawn, and ran her fingers through her hair as she sat down at the kitchen counter.

"So! I made you your two eggs, with some of the bacon that I didn't burn, and some sourdough toast," Becca said, still keeping the chipper tone in her voice and trying to make Jaime feel as comfortable as possible. "And I got the hot sauce right here for your eggs. I didn't know if you want juice or milk, so...do you want juice or milk?"

"Juice, please," Jaime said.

When Becca turned back around from getting the orange juice from the fridge, she saw Jaime giving her an inquisitive look. "Everything all right? You want anything else?" Becca asked earnestly.

Becca fidgeted under the counter as Jaime slowly took a sip of her juice. "Not that I don't appreciate the hospitality," Jaime said, "but...what's really going on, Becca?"

"I just - I mean..." Becca sighed. "You remember when I first made you breakfast?"

No one but Becca could have seen the shift in Jaime's expression at that. "Yes, I do - _oh._" Jaime's hand dropped her fork as she started to tear up. "Oh."

Becca couldn't keep herself from tearing up, either. "You've just seemed so sad, and afraid, and alone since you started working for Jonas Bledsoe, and I know that I don't know everything, but I know _you_, Jaime, and I know that you feel afraid and alone, and I just wanted you to know that I'm here for you, I'm always here for you, and even if you can't say what's really going on, you should know that I will _always_ fight for you and if you need anything, any help or anything at all, I will do whatever it takes to help, even if you can't ask for it." Becca wiped her eyes. "Okay?"

Jaime tried to speak, then tried to speak again, and then gave up trying to find her words. _Oh, Becca!_ was all that came to mind. She stood right up and walked around the counter, tears rolling down her cheeks before she gave her little sister the absolute biggest hug she could possibly muster, resting her head against Becca's as she squeezed her as tight as she could. Becca returned the hug. _We're gonna make it,_ Jaime thought. _We'll get through this._ _I don't know how, but there is a way and I __**will **__find it._

"I love you," Jaime said, barely able to raise her voice above a whisper in the moment.

Becca couldn't see Jaime's lips anyway, but she felt her voice vibrate through her chest and knew what she had said regardless. "I love you too," Becca replied. _I'm coming for you, Jaime. I don't care what I have to do, I'm going to save you._


End file.
